Walle
by Classicsrule
Summary: Sora had only stopped in that world to clear his head. He never expected to get involved in saving the humanity of that world, nor did he expect to find that the bonds of love could even go far between two robots from completely different lands.
1. Trash Planet

Sora had only touched down on the world to get some fresh air. Some alone time.

This was...a bit too much. Of alone that is.

The air certainly wasn't fresh. It was thick with uncomfortable warmth and foreign smells he didn't know existed. That wasn't a compliment either. It smelled horrible. But he shouldn't have been surprised since the whole place as far as he could see was covered in piles of dirty, disgustingly brown garbage.

At first he thought he'd landed in the world's dump. It just seemed like the most logical answer. But, no. When Sora peered ahead, he saw that there were actually SKYSCRAPERS made of garbage too. And as he walked closer, he noticed that they weren't haphazardously piled together; they were cubes, all stacked neatley on top of eachother, with a path winding down the buildings. Whoever built the buildings sure did have a lot of time and patience on his hands.

But the thing that disturbed Sora most weren't the rows of garbage or the horrible smell, but the intense silence around him.

Normally when he landed in new worlds, there was some sort of commotion going on somewhere near him. He would ask what was going on, they'd more than likely mention Heartless, than he Donald and Goofy would take them out. Rinse and repeat for every world. But Sora had probably been wandering around in circles for hours in that lonely world, and he saw no one. He didn't even hear anyone. Nor was there any wind(though that was probably good since he didn't know whether or not the skyscrapers truly were stable).

Sora probably wouldn't have minded the silence as much if there was at least one sign of life, but this world just seemed to be the pure definition of DEAD. Did everyone in this world get consumed by the Heartless? No...Then there would be masses of them everywhere around him. Another confusing thought. Why were there no Heartless? Were they able to tell the difference between ugliness and beauty? Then they were probably smarter than Sora gave them credit for.

He came down to think. Just to clear his head. To take a break for a little while. Maybe come up with a plan to find a non dangerous route to the Organization's stronghold, but his mind kept drifting back to curiosity: 'What happened here? Is anyone alive? Who made the trash buildings? WHY would they make trash buildings?' Finally leaving his circle, which was growing a dent from where he walked, he decided to check for any more signs of life. Though he had the feeling that he wouldn't be having that much luck. Then again, he thought with a smile, that was just him. He always had to find a positive side to things.

Then, much to his surprise and relief, he spotted movement from the corner of his eye. Turning so he could see it clearly, he quirked an eyebrow in confusion.

He'd been expecting a human or animal, instead, in the distance, there was a pearly white egg shaped...THING levitating off the ground, steadily gazing at its surroundings. Its head was also floating about an inch off of its body, and on the front of the head it had a black screen that displayed two blue oval shaped LED eyes, but no mouth. And on its body, floating an inch away from each sides, it had smooth flat white metals that were obviously its arms, though they lacked fingers. It certainly didn't look human, but it was pretty easy to tell that it was made of metal, so Sora just dubbed it a robot. It seemed a little out of place in this world, though. A sleek spotless robot like that didn't fit in well with the dirty land.

The point was, it was someone. This world wasn't without souls.

"Hey!" Sora shouted, waving his left hand in the air. "Hey, you! Are there others nearby?" It didn't show any sign that heard him. Instead, it emitted an eery blue light from its "chest" on the ground. For a few seconds the light was focused on it, then there were three beeping sounds, followed by a negative "diiink" that reminded Sora of the sound a computer makes when access is denied to a certain website. Starting to feel irritated, Sora called, louder, "At least tell me why the world looks like this!"

Still nothing. It was busy scanning something else with the blue light, but again with apparently negative results. Wondering if he was just too far away to be heard, he edged closer to where the robot floated, his footsteps echoing through the thick air, making it sound like someone else was walking very close by.

The robots' back was turned now, and it was again scanning something miscellanious. "Hey," Sora said, "Where is-"

Faster than Sora thought was possible, the robot whipped its entire body around to face him, its right arm pointing at him. But its arm was no longer an arm-it had shifted into a gun, and fired.

BAM!

Sora was knocked back with a shout of surprise. It didn't hurt all that much, but it left him feeling stunned and shaky, like he'd been hit by a tazer. So it wasn't any regular gun. Sora silently thanked God that he'd had experienced worse things than that blast. If not, that probably would've killed him. After falling on his back and shaking the cobwebs out of his head, he immediately leaped back up and glared at the robot. And the robot glared at him, its oval shaped eyes were now curving downward in cold, half moon shaped glower. It still had its gun out, and looked like it would fire again at the first sign of defiance.

"Hey! What was that for?" Sora demanded. "I was just trying to ask where everyone was!"

To his surprise, the robot spoke back. "Who are you?" The voice was as cold as its expression, and though it was hard to tell since it sounded so metallic, Sora actually caught the sound of a FEMALE voice. It just sounded like a woman speaking through a computer. Maybe that was why, now that Sora thought of it, it looked kind of feminine. It WAS a woman. A robot with an actual gender...

At least he wouldn't have to call her "it" anymore.

"Who are you?" She repeated in the same tone. "Who are you?"

Sora didn't even realize that he'd drifted off in his own world. The anger surged back into him, along with a new dose of suspicion. "Why do you want to know?" When someone got Sora angry, it was normally pretty hard for him to stop himself from getting into a fight. But really, this robot would deserve it. In fact, she probably wasn't even a "good guy" for that matter. Yeah. More than likely, she was an enemy. That would explain why she didn't look like she belonged in this world. Maybe she even allied herself with Maleficent and came to lead the Heartless to the "Heart" of this world. Maybe that was what she'd been scanning for.

One thing was for sure: She didn't like Sora.

With a little smirk, Sora summoned the Keyblade into his hand, and crouched into a fighting position. The robot obviously took that as a challenge, because she fired another shot at Sora. This time, Sora rolled out of the way in the nick of time, so the shot only left a trail of dust kicked up in its wake.

"If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you get!" Sora declared, running straight toward her, ready to smash his Keyblade onto her metal body.

"NO!"

All of a sudden, Sora felt himself fall over and tumble across the ground in awkward somersaults, covering himself in dirt in the process. Someone had tripped him. He felt it. And it definitely wasn't the robot who stood before him, now staring at him with a somewhat amused expression, he eyes now curled into upward crescents.

Sora turned around to see what he tripped over...A box. A tiny brown box that he swore hadn't been there a few seconds ago but was there now was what rudely interrupted his fight. Did somewhat throw it? The voice that shouted "no" didn't belong to the white robot.

One second of staring at the box later, his question was answered. Underneath the box, two yellow and brown treads shakily folded out, and on both sides of the box, long skinny arms came out, attached to three fingered hands that looked like shovels, and on top of the box unfolded what appeared to be binoculars. Another robot, Sora realized, watching the binoculars peer at him shyly. He could see on the inside of the binoculars that the box-robot was trying to focus his eyes to train on Sora, though he only succeeded in tilting the binoculars downward, making a sad and scared expression. Unlike the egg robots' cold and chilling blue eyes, the box's deep dark eyes were innocent and warm, mixed with curiosity and wonder. Its dirty rusterior and body made it look much more like an inhabitant of the world. Sora could feel himself immediately soften upon seeing the box's pitiful eyes. Odd. A few seconds ago he just wanted to pummel whoever decided to trip him.

"Hey, there." Sora greeted it gently. "Uh...Who are you?"

Sora's relaxed voice must've calmed the robot down. Immediately, he stuck one of his shovel hands out and shook Sora's own.

"W...Waaaaaalllleeeeee..." Its voice was masculine, and it too sounded like someone speaking through a computer, only more high pitched like he swallowed a touch of helium. Sora took his hand back and awkwardly wiped the dirt from his hand on his shirt. "Nice to meet you. I'm Sora."

"Sssssooooorrr..." He stuttered out curiously. Sora involuntarily grinned. "Sora." He repeated.

"Soooorrraaa." Sora chuckled a bit. So there was a friendly source in this world. Well, there goes the "finding a companion" part of his regular world visits. Though he still didn't understand why "Walle" had tripped him.

"Say, why did you stop me anyway? That robot behind me-I think she's dangerous."

"...Eeeevvvaaa..." Walle stated, actually sounding wistful. Then he rolled forward, past Sora, and right next to the egg shaped robot. He pointed at her again and said excitedly, "Eeeevvvaaa!" To Sora's shock, she started giggling!

"You know her? Er, you know Eva?" Sora asked. "Eva" turned to look at Sora, the happiness again replaced by her cold glare. "Eve." She said sternly. Sora glared back again. Walle seemed to like her, but that didn't mean he had to. Though that was a little interesting-Walle didn't seem like the type to befriend someone like Eva-er, Eve. Sora figured she'd blast anyone to pieces, no matter how friendly. But the way she laughed with the way Walle said her name(didn't even mind him getting it wrong, so what was wrong with Sora getting it wrong?), and the fact that she wasn't pointing her gun at him was enough to convince Sora that they were friends or something like that.

"Well why did you attack me?" Sora asked Eve. "What are you even looking for?"

"Classified." She turned herself away from Sora, her eyes now neutral ovals. That just fueled Sora's suspicion.

"Do you know anyone named Maleficent?" Okay, so that was a stupid question. If Eve was with her, why would she give that away? But at that point, it was the best way of getting the truth out that Sora could think of.

However, Eve didn't ignore him or answer with an innocent "no". Instead, she looked very bemused.

Well, that was good enough for him.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

A horrendous loud beeping sound filled the air, and Sora saw a red blinking light that was going off on the top of Walle's boxed body. He looked past Sora and Eve with a look of horror on his face.

"Eva!" He kept gesturing wildly in different directions, and stuttering out his and Eve's name so quickly and desperately. He knew something that they didn't.

"What is it, Walle?" Sora asked. Walle was still panicking and waving his arms all over the place. Eve seemed to think that he was trying to attack, because she drew her gun out again and aimed it threateningly at Walle. Sora couldn't help but roll his eyes. Did Eve NOT notice how scared he sounded? He didn't even look like he was armed with any sort of weapon, and mere seconds ago she was smiling at Walle like they were long time friends. She seriously needed to take a chill pill...

Sora finally turned around to see what Walle was going crazy about, and his eyes widened in horror. Coming toward them at break neck speed was a gigantic cloud of dust and sand and flying garbage, so thick he couldn't see anything past it. Since Walle's annoying alarm still kept beeping, Sora assumed that this was a very common occurence. But Walle was a robot-he wouldn't have to worry about breathing any of that in, or getting the sand caught in his eyes or anything else that Sora would have to worry about.

It was coming closer. Sora tried to make a run for it, but the sandstorm was quicker. It enveloped him with its violent winds, blinding him with dust and debris and choking his lungs. Sora closed his eyes, which were tearing up, and closed his mouth in a vain attempt to prevent any more damage to his lungs. A twinge of fear started to spread through him when he realized that if he stayed in the sandstorm any longer, he'd die. But he couldn't call for help. He couldn't open his eyes to find a shelter. He couldn't do anything.

"WALLE!" Eve was screaming. Oh, sure, now she wanted his help. At least SHE didn't have to worry about breathing or dying. "WAAAALLEEEEEE!" Sora wasn't sure if Walle could even hear her now. He wasn't surprised if he had already found shelter somewhere. Oh, why did he decide to take a break in THIS world of all the other ones? Another one of his stupid mistakes-go to a world that he Donald and Goofy had never heard of, do a little thinking and come back. He should've just gone to Radiant Garden, or at least brought Donald and Goofy with him. They probably would know what to do, and now he was going to die and fail his heart's desire of finding Kairi, saving Riku, and returning home. Damn it, he couldn't stop then. He didn't want to die. They would die too. The worlds would fall, his friends, everyone...No. Someone save him NOW-

A hand gripped his arm. A cold, rough, dirty, metal, three fingered hand. It started trying to drag him, lead him somewhere. Too weak to fight back and so desperate to find shelter, he obliged and pushed himself to follow the hand, rapidly running out of air.

He scarcely heard the sound of something opening, like a garage door, then he felt himself being pulled up a metal ridge, then across warmer, steel floor. Behind him he heard that garage noise again, only this time, the sandstorm started to sound a little muffled, so he figured that the door was blocking it out. Sora finally took his chance to breathe a generous gulp of air before coughing up violently all the dirt and sand he swallowed. Blinking his eyes open, he saw, to his relief, Walle was in front of him, staring at him worriedly. When he saw Sora's eyes open, he let out a happy coo and then moved to his side. Sora turned and noticed that Eve was right next to him, staring around in wonder and awe.

Sora also glanced around curiously, admiring some of the objects before him. He seemed to be in an old truck or garage of sorts, with racks upon racks on either side of the truck filled to the brim with odd knick-knacks, toys, and decorations that Sora would've taken for granted on any other day. Attached to the ceiling were rows of christmas lights, lighting up and giving a warm and inviting atmosphere that calmed his soul and made him feel safe and sound, like he was back in his home world surrounded by his dear friends. Walle himself treaded to the back of the truck and held his arms out in a humble "welcome" pose.

"This is where you live?" Sora mused, picking up a broken train off of one of the racks and tinkering with its wheels. Walle nodded and beckoned Eve forward. The latter was still looking around, wondering what objects were in the racks, what they did, where they came from, and why Walle seemed interested in them. Though Eve was very interested in them too since she'd never seen them before, she just figured that since Walle'd lived there for years, he'd know all about everything in the room.

Sora saw Walle first pluck off one of his own eyes, which Sora now noticed was slightly cracked, before pressing a big red button that was next to the left rack. The rack started to rotate forward so that another rack came forward instead, and Walle picked up another binocular eye to replace the broken one. As soon as the new eye was attached, he shifted his binoculars until they were evenly matched and balanced. Probably to maintain focus. Then he took out a rubix cube and a lightbulb from the right rack, handing the light bulb to Eve and the rubix cube to Sora.

"Uh, thanks I guess." Sora stated awkwardly, twisting the cube's knobs in an attempt to solve the puzzle. He was never good at those things...

Next to him, where Eve was floating, there was a bright light. Sora turned around to see that Eve was holding the lightbulb-and it was lighting up.

"Whoa!" Walle exclaimed, taking the light bulb back for a second and poking it curiously. It didn't come back on. He gave it back to Eve, and it lit up immediately on contact with her fingers. Sora failed to suppress a whistle of impressment. "Okay, I'll admit that it is pretty cool...Hey, can you solve this?" He handed Eve the rubix cube, and she started tinkering with it like Sora did earlier. But in matter of two seconds, she'd already solved it. "Wow..." Sora took the rubix cube back and examined it with slight amazement.

Walle, who had just grabbed a tape from the rack next to him, handed said item to Eve before taking the rubix cube from Sora, also examining it with amazement. Sora had to admit, she was pretty smar-

"AH!" Sora nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard Walle's terrified squeal. Looking at Eve, he saw what the problem was: Eve had stretched the cassette right out of the tape. Walle snatched the tape out of Eve's hand and rewound it hastily back inside. Sora felt like yelling at Eve again for messing with one of Walle's things when she obviously should've known better, but he stopped himself upon seeing Eve's sorry expression that was directed at Walle. Walle gave her a nod, his own way of saying "it's okay", and placed the tape inside a VCR which he happened to have at the very end of the room, tapping his hands together nervously.

The static of the small TV screen atop the VCR was replaced with lively people dancing and singing in the streets to a cheerful tune.

"Put on your sunday clothes when you feel down and out..." The lyrics flowed through the room, lifting everyone's spirits-especially Walle. He was just relieved that the tape wasn't broken. Eve, when she glanced at the screen, let out an "ooh..." of wonder and her blue light started scanning the screen. Sora stared at her in confusion. Did she just think that whatever she was looking for was trapped in the TV?

Walle and Eve were busy interacting with each other and not paying any attention to him, so Sora took that as a good opportunity to try and sort out his thoughts.

The song that was playing sounded eerily familiar to him- it could've been from one of the tapes that Kairi had begged him and Riku to watch when they were very young. She'd had a thing for musicals, and there was one in particular that she claimed was "the bestest of them all!". After days of constant begging, pleading, and whining, Sora and Riku had finally obliged and came to her house the next day to watch. Sora, during some parts, felt like dozing off since he couldn't understand what all the people on the screen were talking about anyway, but whenever a song came on...It was actually pretty fun. Most of the songs were very cheery and upbeat, and Kairi'd be jumping up and down trying to match the rhythm. Riku and Sora giggled at her, and she'd stuck her tongue at them playfully.

As the song he listened to played on and on, he was sure of it-that was the movie that he and his friends had been watching...Sora bit his lip and unconsciously patted his pocket where the thalassa shell charm lay, safe and sound. Now more than ever he wished that he could find them. Kairi was still alive-but she was trapped by the Organization, having no idea where she was or how to get out. She wasn't as safe as he hoped. And Riku could very be dead. Though he'd recieved hints that he was alive, prowling around worlds leaving hints of where to go, there was a nagging at the back of his head that filled him with dark thoughts. The same dark thoughts that clouded his head while he was out in that sandstorm. That was why he'd been panicking earlier-if he died, his friends could too. And it would be all his fault. Even beyond death, Sora would be overflowed to the brim with guilt and sadness that he'd let the most important people in his life die.

Now Sora felt like he was wasting too much time-he had to get out, now, and start back on finding them again. But no, he couldn't. The sandstorm was still raging outside, and he had no way of contacting Donald and Goofy when he was inside a shelter of any kind. It blocked the homing signal from his Keyblade. He had no choice but to spend the night.

Not wanting to depress himself, he decided to see what Walle and Eve were doing now. Eve had just picked a cigarette lighter off one of the racks, and flicked it open. Then she pressed on a button, and a small flame erupted. "Ooh..." Both Walle and Eve appeared to be entranced by its light and warmth, and just kept staring at it like it was a treasure.

"And that is all...that love's about..."

Sora looked back at the VCR. A different scene was playing this time. A man and a woman were staring at each other lovingly, and holding their hands.

"And we'll recall...when time runs out..." Sora felt a new memory awaken in his heart-another that had happened back when he Riku and Kairi had been watching this movie. When they came upon the very scene that was playing in the truck, Kairi had started tearing up and had her left hand over her heart. Sora had rolled his eyes and turned to Riku, sticking his tongue out and pointing to his mouth. Riku chuckled lightly.

Then, much to his surprise and embarassment, he felt something warm and smooth grip his hand gently. He turned around and saw that it was Kairi-she was still staring at the screen with watery eyes, but her right hand was holding Sora's as she watched the couple in the film do the same thing. The warmth of her hand holding his along with her loving expression was enough to send Sora over the edge: he blushed deeply and involuntarily squeezed her hand back-but not too tight. He felt sweat form on his face and he was very sure that Kairi's dad had cranked the temperature up a couple hundred degrees. When he turned to Riku with a desperate expression on his face, Riku just smirked.

When the scene finally ended, Kairi had sighed dreamily and then stared at her hand in Sora's. For a few seconds, her expression appeared mixed, then it broke into a radiant smile along with a light blush appearing on her cheeks, and she took her hand out, but not before stating: "Never forget that it only takes a moment".

Even now, thinking about that memory sent conflicting feelings of chills running down his spine, yet having warmth creep into his face.

Trying to shake the embarrasing thought out of his head, he focused on Walle and Eve again. Walle, instead of focusing on the flame, was now staring intently at Eve's hand. Sometimes, he would look back at the TV where the couple was holding hands, then unsurely look at Eve's hand. Eve didn't seem to notice-she was still gazing at the flame. Walle slowly inched his own hand out, though it was shaking uncontrollably with fear. The couple in the movie was doing it to show companionship and love. If he did the same to Eve, maybe she would love him back. It just had to work...Just a few more inches...almost there...

Eve suddenly looked at him, saw his hand approaching her own, and abruptly slid her fingers back into her edgeless arm. Her eyes were expressionless now, if not slightly accusing. Walle awkwardly drew his hand back, tracing nervous circles into the floor.

Sora recognized that look in Walle's eyes. It was the exact same look that Kairi had given him all those years ago, only it seemed to be magnified and mixed with loneliness. He didn't just think of Eve as a new friend-he was in love with her. Head over heels in love. Sora gave Walle a look of sympathy. Eve didn't appear to return the feelings. She did appear to like him, but not in that kind of way. She seemed more dedicated to searching for...whatever she was searching for. Sora found himself glaring at Eve again(this time she didn't notice though, she was looking at the TV with interest). Whenever he had a mission to do, he always put his friends before anything else. He knew that protecting the worlds were important, but he always found himself caring more for his friend's safety above all. Eve looked like the exact opposite: Mission always comes first. But how could she ignore how alone Walle was?

Sora was snapped out of his thoughts by a loud CLANG. Walle was searching for another object from one of the racks, and a trash lid had landed on his head. Sora chuckled a bit, and Eve did the same.

Finally, Walle found what he was looking for: a boot. Sora raised an eyebrow in confusion. Why in the world would he collect something like THAT? Sure the other objects in the truck weren't very interesting to humans, but Walle didn't seem to have collected a bunch of smelly boots besides that one in particular.

But upon closer inspection, Sora noticed that it wasn't the boot that had taken Walle's interest, but what was IN the boot. Walle was touching it delicately, like it was fragile doll that would break unless he was extremely careful. And Sora could understand why: it was a plant. A tiny little sapling, green and growing and perfectly healthy. Sora would've skipped over it had he been in any other world, but since this planet was covered in nothing but garbage and no colors but brown, the green plant stood out like a shining beacon of hope. The world wasn't completely dead, it seemed to say.

"Ooh..." Eve also saw the plant, and she began scanning it.

Beep, beep, beep...dingdingding!

Sora zipped around to Eve. Her scanner, instead of making a negative "diiink", was instead beeping like crazy, and there was a green light that was blinking on her chest. Eve's eyes, instead of neutral ovals, were now impossibly wide circles, like she was in shock. Then her body suddenly grew incredibly stiff, and her chest slid open like an automatic door, and a blue light appeared out of it and circled the plant. An inhuman whirring sound came out of Eve, and the plant was lifted into the air and placed in Eve's chest. Then the "door" slid shut, along with Eve's arms and even her head, that snapped against her body, now full giving her an egg shaped appearance. Her black screen was completely black, no LED blue eyes to show that she was still awake. The only sign showing that she was still alive was a green blinking light on her chest that also showed a plant emblem.

"...Eva?" Walle looked hopelessly confused. When Eve didn't respond, he started to look scared. Sora felt a little bit of that too. What the hell just happened? Did they break her? Why would she react to the plant like that? Was she...was THAT what she was looking for? Great, she found it. Hooray. But what why did she just shut off?

"Eve?" Sora asked as well, hoping for a response to at least cheer Walle up. Seeing Walle so scared and sad just stirred pity in Sora's heart. "Eva?" Walle's voice rose in despair. "E-E-Eva!"

Sora sighed hopelessly. It looked like he would be delaying Kairi and Riku again. As much as he wanted to find them, he didn't want Walle all alone without someone to interact with. Judging by how lonesome everything was in the world, Walle and Eve had been the only two souls to walk the planet. Even if Eve didn't return Walle's feelings, the robot still needed a companion more than anything else. Walle saved his life. He was kind to him. He offered him and Eve shelter and asked for no reward. Giving him a companion was the least Sora could do. Besides, it wasn't like he never got sidetracked in any of the other worlds he visited. Sora gave himself a firm nod.

"Don't worry, Walle." He said. His voice was firm. His mind was made up. "I'll help you get her back up."

Walle gave him the utmost grateful look Sora'd ever recieved. Sora smiled back reassuringly.

Seeing Walle happy again would be very well worth the wait.


	2. Selfless

The next morning, the sandstorm was gone. Walle and Sora set off to work.

Walle led Sora, who was pulling on Eve, on top of his garage and gestured where Sora had to set Eve. She was actually very light-though that could've been because she was still levitating despite being shut down.

"So how are we gonna fix her, Walle?" Sora asked.

Walle held his hand as if to say "hold on a second", then from the top of his box he unfolded solar panels that reflected the bright sunlight. Walle pointed to his chest, and Sora noticed for the first time that he had a read out on his chest that displayed yellow lines that appeared to be only half way there, but they started moving up with a loud beeping noise the longer Walle kept his solar panels out. When it reached the highest level, there was a musical "buuum..." and Walle folded the panels back in, shaking his head slightly. He moved around for a second, and Sora realized that he seemed to be going faster than usual.

"Oh, you're recharging!" Sora mused. Walle nodded and pointed back to Eve with a hopeful look on his face. Suddenly it all made sense: he thought that Eve just needed to be recharged. While that did seem to be a pretty good reason, Sora couldn't suppress a twinge of doubt. She may have been a robot like Walle, but she was completely different in design and mind. More than likely, keeping her out in the sun would have no effect on her...But at this point, they really had no other choice. And maybe, Sora thought with a sanguine smile, if they waited long enough, Eve would finally decide to turn back on again. It was all just a matter of time, right? She was still alive after all.

"Okay. Good idea, Walle."

So the two of them sat there, just staring at Eve's vacant form, waiting with eager eyes. Eventually, that eagerness melted into hopefulness, then to awkwardness, then finally to boredom. They'd been sitting on the top of the truck for hours now, and Eve didn't show a single hint that she was waking up.

The blazing sun was starting to get to Sora. Sweat was pouring down his temple, his skin was turning red, and he wished desperately that there was some pool of cool water somewhere. But he didn't want to leave Walle, who appeared uneffected by the drought. In fact, he looked perfectly comfortable. Sora snorted a bit. He wished that the clothes he was wearing at least had the courtesy of turning him into a robot when he'd entered the world.

Sora suddenly remembered-he was still carrying a few potions. They always helped him out. Taking the sparkling green liquid in a bottle out of his pocket, Sora gulped it down hungrily and sighed with relief. A wave of freshness and relaxation overtook him, he desperately needed that. At least it would tide him over until Eve woke up. IF she woke up...Sora stubbornly pushed that thought out of his head. She'd wake up. It was only a matter of time...

Next to him, Walle was messing with his treads, circling them around and playing them to the rhythm of the cheery song from the movie they'd heard yesterday. Sora, wanting to make things a little more fun, summoned his Keyblade to-

"Whoa!" Walle stared at Sora's weapon in awe, and Sora smiled in amusement. He'd almost forgotten that Walle hadn't seen the Keyblade yet. If he thought the stuff he collected was amazing, wait til he got a load of what THIS baby could do.

He stood up and pointed the Keyblade to the sky. "FIRE!" An enormous flame erupted out of the tip of Sora's Keyblade and flew through the air until it couldn't be seen anymore. Walle was focusing and unfocusing his eyes so he could try and see if the fireball landed anywhere. Then he looked up at Sora and held his hands out eagerly.

"Oh, you wanna hold it?" Sora held back a snicker as he obliged. He couldn't wait to hear how surprised he'd be when-

As expected, the Keyblade reappeared in Sora's hands after Walle had held it for about six seconds. He chortled a little when he saw how amazed Walle looked. Suddenly, Walle excitedly grabbed the Keyblade again, and it dissapeared into Sora's hands again. He grabbed it once more. It dissapeared once more. He grabbed it. It dissapeared. He grabbed it. It dissapeared. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat...

Sora briefly wondered what Walle found so exciting about this before he saw that the little robot wasn't staring at the Keyblade, but at all the sparks that it was making everytime it dissapeared and reappeared.

...Oh. He was mostly interested in the sparks...

All at once, Sora let out a fit of uncontrolled laughter. He could feel himself fall back against the roof and shake with it for so long that he was running out of breath. He barely saw Walle next to him, who was shaking a little. But when his own laughter faded, he heard that Walle was actually shaking with some laughter as well. Though it sounded more nervous and quiet, his eyes remained completely happy. Sora regained himself, and gave him a fond pat on the head, like a brother would do to his younger sibling.

"You're amazing, you know that?"

...RUMBLE...

With a small gasp, Sora and Walle looked straight ahead of them. In the distance, slowly coming closer, were a bunch of thick gray clouds. Not brown and dusty like sandstorm clouds, but gray and wet like...thunderstorm clouds.

Before he could question why the two hadn't noticed the storm clouds until now, Walle was already pulling on Sora's hand while gesturing to the door of the garage desperately.

"Alright, I understand. I'll grab you and Eve so we can-"

Walle shook his head quickly and pointed to himself and Eve, before pointing firmly to the top of the roof. Sora stared at him in shock.

"You can't just stand up here in the storm, you could be-!"

Walle grabbed an umbrella(it was on the roof the whole time) and gave him a reassuring thumbs up as he treaded to Eve and held it over her. Unfortunately, there was only room for one, so Walle would not be under it.

"Walle, you don't have to do this. Besides I'm not exactly sure if 'recharging' would work if she was in the rain with an umbrella over her head...And I can stay beside you if you'd like." Sora knew it was hopeless. Walle's mind appeared to be made up. But the poor thing didn't deserve to stay out in such miserable weather. He at least needed lively company...

Walle firmly shook his head and pointed to the garage door again. He gave in another reassuring thumbs up though he was starting to quiver a little. Sora, finding no other thing to say that would convince Walle, finally nodded and trudged into the safety of the garage.  
>XXX BAM!<p>

A flash of lightning. A painful warble. Sora winced for the hundredth time as he heard Walles pitiful voice. He didn't have to be a genuis to figure out that lightning was attracted to Walle and seemed very keen on making him as miserable as possible. He was up there suffering, and Sora was relaxing inside the garage.

Sora should've fought harder. He should've just stood his ground outside and at least make sure that he could block out all lightning with his Keyblade. Sure it would've given him a painful jolt, but he could take it better than Walle...

It was hard not to grow fond of the little robot. He was so pure and kind. He had all the innocence and curiosity of a child, and the fact was so willing to care for and protect the ones that mattered most to him had just been proven about half an hour ago. If Walle cared at all about his own safety, he would've allowed Sora to stand beside him. But no, he only wanted him safe and dry. And he wanted Eve to wake up, while not being disturbed by the horrible weather. Such a generous machine. Not at all like he'd seen in movies-he'd seen enough sci-fi films to figure that all robots were cold and unfeeling. Eve seemed to be the very definition of that, though she did show a few basic emotions like happiness, guilt, and curiosity. But other than that, she was just like them.

Walle on the other hand was...almost human. He had more complex emotions of joy, anguish, loneliness, and even love. Who designed him like that? Sora would have to meet him and thank him someday, if he was still alive that is. The fact remained that the world was desolate, and Walle and Eve were the only ones left. How long had it been since Walle had seen another soul? Eve looked like she just got there-she was so clean. Walle must've been there for years. Sora didn't know much about computers or robots, but he knew that they could last a very long time with the proper tools. And Walle's state just screamed how long he'd been around. This only made him more sympathetic. He needed someone. Someone to love, and love him back. Eve had to wake up now. If she stuck around long enough, maybe even she would learn-

Sora jumped. Walle had gotten struck by lightning again.  
>XXX One uneasy sleep later, Sora woke up midmorning to see Walle playing a game of some sort on the TV. When he saw the screen, he realized that he was playing "Pong". Riku and he used to play it when they had nothing better to do. The score on screen was 8000 to 0.<p>

Sora had a feeling he knew who was losing.

"Hey, Walle..." Walle turned to him with a happy look on his face.

"Any sign of waking up?"

Walle stared at Eve, who was right next to him, blankly before letting out a sad little sigh. If that wasn't a clear answer, Sora didn't know what was.

"I'm so sorry..." Sora suddenly remembered with an edge of horror that he'd been in this world for about three days now. Donald and Goofy had no idea where he was or if he was even safe. They were without a doubt very worried about their friend who said he'd be back in a few hours. Sora had to leave, but that meant...leaving Walle behind, all by his lonesome again.

More than anything, Sora wanted to stay for just a little bit longer. A week. Two weeks. However long it took to see Eve back up again, but he had his own agenda to attend to. Kairi and Riku still needed his help. It was either stay with Walle and delay his friends, or go back to searching, but leave Walle by himself. Whichever choice he made, one consequence would happen. Sora almost felt like wailing with despair.

"Walle...I have to leave." To his surprise, Walle didn't look like he was shocked like Sora expected him to be. He just looked sad and hopeless, like he knew that he was going to that. "I'm sorry...It's just my friends, they need me, and I've been delaying them, so..." No more words needed to be said. Walle nodded sadly but with understanding, then he grabbed Eve's body and gestured with his free hand to come outside. Sora nodded and obeyed.

After reluctantly leaving Eve by herself on the roof, Walle led Sora back to where he'd found him, and Sora thanked him.

"Are you sure you're okay with leaving Eve for a while?"

Walle paused for a second, then he nodded. "Dir...rect...tive." He stuttered.

Directive? Oh, what he was built to do! "What are you built for?"

Walle chirped happily and excitedly used his shovel hands to gather a load of trash off of one of the several piles of garbage. They entered his cubed body, and Walle shuddered for a few seconds while he grunted in concentration. Then he opened his body again, and a cube of trash fell out. Walle pointed to it and stated, "Ta-Da."

Sora stared at it- at least now he knew who made all the skyscrapers. Along with the reason that he left Eve for the second. It didn't really seem like he had a choice since he was built to do that. But the fact that he'd been ignoring his directive for the past few days just to take care of Eve just added to how caring he was...Sora felt himself choke up. If he stayed any longer, he may change his mind.

"Well, I'm gonna go Walle." Walle nodded sadly and stuck out his hand. But Sora, instead of taking it, grabbed Walle and embraced him in a hug. "Whoa!" Walle exclaimed.

"I'm so sorry..." Sora murmured so quietly Walle could scarcely hear him. "Sometime, I'll come back. I promise." Sora wasn't sure whether Walle hugged him back to mimic his actions, or to comfort Sora as well as himself. But if he knew the robot well enough, then he was able to tell that it was the latter.

When he let go of him, and Walle's back was turned, Sora summoned his Keyblade and pressed a silver button on the handle, camouflaged so well that it was practically invisible. Donald himself had installed it in there so he could contact them by Gummi Ship whenever he was by himself in a world.

"Sora! Where've you been?" As expected, Donald's scratchy and unintelligible voice crackled so loud that Sora had to hold the handle far away from his ear to prevent deafness.

"Sorry, Donald. I got a little sidetracked..."

"Do you have any idea how worried Goofy and I have been? We tried landing many times, but every time we did, you were no where in sight! That world is so big and desolate and filthy we thought you'd gotten lost! You're lucky you..." The rest of Donald's mumblings were so low that Sora couldn't make them out. Though touched by their concern, Sora felt a flash of annoyance. He could take care of himself after all. But before he could make a snide comment, he remembered the sandstorm and how he had silently begged for someone to help. That was enough to shut him back up.

"Look, can you just pick me up? I'm near a...near...a..."

Sora's jaw refused to work correctly after what he just saw. Inches away from Walle's truck, a huge rocket had landed, and a claw was slowly edging out.

"Sora? SORA? What's going-?" His Keyblade dropped to the floor out of pure shock. Though a part of him felt a little bit happy. In that rocket were probably more people, and that meant that Walle would have a friend to talk to, and if there were other robots, then he would be able to ask how to fix Eve and-wait a minute. Why was the giant claw clutching Eve...?

Sora gasped and turned to tell Walle, but he saw that said robot was already off like a shot toward the rocket. Lucky for him, the claw was moving even slower now that it had Eve in its grasp, but Walle wasn't fast enough on his treads. He'd never make it in time...

Without a second thought, Sora found himself running at breakneck speed, tripling Walle's frantic pace. When he reached him, he picked up Walle(he was surprisingly light), and strutted ever faster toward the rocket. The entire time, Walle was screaming in a frightened voice, "EVAAAAA!"

The rocket was warming up its engines. If Sora slowed down for even a second, it would be off before they could even grab it. But at long last, they had reached it, and Sora noticed a latter of some sort on the rocket's side, facing toward the duo. They'd be able to grab it and hang on.

Sora practically threw Walle onto the ladder, and Walle was able to keep an iron grip. Sora climbed it high enough so that he was just below Walle, and in the nick of time too. The rocket had already started its launch.

Sora had underestimated how great the force would be of a rocket flying into space. The wind whipped through his body like knives and felt bits of his hair falling out. He couldn't open his eyes out of the winds force, and he could feel his mouth whipping back from the G-force. He could just barely hear Walle's high pitched terrified scream, and if Sora could, he would scream to the skies again about WHY he couldn't have been turned into a robot.

At one point Sora had squinted one eye open, and he saw past some thick brown clouds a whole row of satellites with a logo that said "BnL". And behind them, a row of stars began to open up and they were approaching space at rapid speed-

Wait, space? He couldn't go to space! How the hell was he supposed to BREATHE-

One of the satellites painfully collided with his head.

Black.


	3. The Axiom

"Sora..."

Sora clenched his eyes tightly shut and mumbled, "Quiet, I'm sleeping..." He had a horrible headache that he'd been trying to sleep off for a while now, though the rest of his body felt unusually comfortable. The normally one inch thick bed that he, Donald, and Goofy were always forced to sleep on in the Gummi ship felt lighter than air. In fact, it didn't feel like he was laying on it at all. He felt like he was floating, like those weird dreams that he used to have when his journey first began. But this time, he didn't take an unexpected fall. He remained floating, and the pleasant weightlessness that soared through his body was more than enough to have Sora drifting back to sleep...

But he couldn't, because the voice that kept calling his name wouldn't stop. And it kept getting louder with distress. "Soooraaaa!"

Giving in, Sora slowly opened his eyes and stated, still half asleep, "Alright, Goofy, I'm up..."

But what he saw wasn't the red and white walls of the Gummi Ship, but the vastness of outer space. Did he fall asleep against the window...?

Suddenly, it all came back in a flash. Walle. Eve. The trash planet. The rocket ship. Pain...SPACE!

He was alive, and he was breathing in space. "AH!"

He felt something in his hand jolt. When he looked at his hand to see what it was, he saw that Walle was grasping it, and he was shivering, though he looked happy that Sora woke up. Sora gave him a smile to show that he was fine. He didn't shout because he was scared or anything, he was just surprised. The fact that he was still alive even though he was in the endless vacume of space broke so many laws of physics that Sora would have a fine of one billion bucks. It was probably the fact that he was still within Walle's world-if they were out of the world, he would've seen the Gummi ship, along with the silhouettes of other worlds. Sora brought up the theory in the world of Port Royal that the reason they were unaffected by a curse was because they came from different worlds. So maybe the reason Sora could breathe in space was because it wasn't HIS space?

Walle had been holding his hand the whole time so he wouldn't float away. His other hand was still holding the ladder of the rocket. Sora must've been out for a while-he could feel sweat forming on his hand that was still being held by the little robot. Neither were even sure where the rocket was heading if it was heading anywhere at all.

For the past few hours, Walle had been busying himself by watching the starry skies that they crossed while glancing at Sora's unconscious form on every occasion to see if he was waking up. For a while, he'd been afraid that Sora was shut down and unresponsive just like Eve, but people like him seemed to recover faster since he woke up three hours after being knocked out. Maybe he just needed a recharge too.

Now that Sora was awake, watching the universe pass them by was a lot more fun and interesting. Both would point out different constellations, shooting stars, and odd looking clouds. It never got boring because there literally was never enough to see. Sora himself found this space gazing very relaxing-when he Donald and Goofy would travel through the space between worlds, there were always enemy ships filled to the brim with Heartless and Nobodies that he was forced to avoid or attack, so he never had a chance to sit back and admire the view. But here, there weren't any signs of enemies to disrupt the peaceful atmosphere. At one point when Sora explained about the Heartless and Nobodies to Walle, he was pretty sure that the robot had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. But Walle was smiling at him enthusiastically, just happy that Sora seemed to be enjoying himself. He gave another longing glance at Eve when Sora's head was turned. When the rocket stopped, he would continue to find a way to bring Eve back. He never should have left her side for a second.

An hour later, the two looked straight ahead to see that they were heading toward some ominous purple clouds. And the rocket appeared to be slowing down. Were the clouds the rocket's destination?

Then they saw it. Behind the clouds, hidden by the darkness, was a ship. A space ship. But it looked very peculiar-more like a gigantic cruise ship that was multiplied 200 times. Sora thought the rocket was big- but that ship made the rocket seem like the size of a mere ant. On the bow of the ship, the words "Axiom" stood out in bright red letters, followed by the same logo of the satellite that crashed into Sora: "BnL"; though parts of the word looked slightly faded. The rocket itself turned sideways like a car going into paralel park, and it started to shift ever so slowly near the bottom of the ship. Two long blue lasers appeared out of the ship and were aimed at the bow and stern of the rocket, dragging it, and its unknown passengers, inside.

When the door behind the rocket closed, the weightlessness of space wore off. Sora and Walle collapsed on the ladder, tumbling ungracefully onto the bridge now attached to the rocket. Both felt a little heavy due to side effects of drifting in space for the past few hours. But at least they were at a destination.

Steel gray walls were in every direction Sora found, and elevators and mechanically sliding doors were at every corner. Some panels that held robotic arms were coming out and taking care of the rocket: Repairing broken parts, refueling, cleaning bits of dirt, and they even had the courtesy to attach a new bumper sticker. "I love BnL" It displayed proudly. The entire room itself was big enough to hold ten more rockets. Sora could only imagine how big the rest of the ship could be.

But now was not the time to be sightseeing. It was back to business. They had to get Eve out of there-

Oh, speaking of Eve, her vacant body was suddenly right in front of them in some kind of box, alongside several other robots that looked exactly like her- only difference was that Eve was the only one with a blinking green light on her chest.

"Eva..." Walle reached for his Eve, looking like he was going to pry her from the box. As if the machine sensed Walle's goal, a claw opened out of a hatch in the ceiling and grabbed Eve, dragging her to another part of the room that was, thankfully, only a few a feet far. Only downside was that there was a pretty long jump from the bridge to the ground. Sora picked up Walle, who had grown worried when he saw Eve getting carried away, and leapt off the bridge, landing a little more gracefully than when they first came.

Eve was still floating in the same place the claw had put her, only now she was again lined up with her sister probes. Walle eagerly treaded to where she was and was about to pull her away, but then Sora shouted in an alarming tone, "Walle, hide! Someone's coming!"

Walle panicked and scrambled around as he tried to find a place to hide. Eventually, he settled upon getting behind Eve and folding into a tiny box. He was completely unnoticeable if you looked from the front of Eve. Sora on the other hand was too tall to crouch into an uncomfortably small form and hide behind a probe, so he took to diving behind the one of the rocket wings and peering over it.

Approaching the probes was another sort of robot, white and levitating like Eve, except it was shaped like a long skinny trapezoid, and where eyes should've been it instead had a red light that was blazing and ringing like a police siren. It was unusually tiny, so it didn't appear all that threatening. No, the threatening looking ones were the robots behind it. They were rectangularly shaped, and on top of their heads were yellow flashing sirens. On the front of their bodies were computer screens of some sort that currently displayed a black blank screen. They towered behind the red sirening robot like dwarfish(they only grew up to reach Sora's waist) but bulky bodyguards. Like Eve, they were probably armed with a weapon of some sort.

The red sirened robot stopped before each of the probes, scanning them all for a matter of seconds. Finally he stopped on the Eve that Walle loved, and he froze all of a sudden after he finished scanning her. Then an ear splitting alarm rang throughout the entire room, and every single light in the room turned as green as Eve's blinking light for some reason. And the blank screens on the bulky bodyguard robots now showed the same plant insignia that Eve had.

A red light shot out of a hole in the red siren robot's chest and encircled Eve. Like an invisible hand was picking her up, the red light forced her body onto a cart that happened to be nearby. It didn't even notice Walle, who was now without a hiding place and staring at Eve quite frightfully. The cart carrying Eve, and now the red siren robot too, seemed to act on its own accord as it followed a blue line that stretched into the mechanical sliding doors into another part of the ship.

"Eva!" Walle immediately chased after her, and Sora followed suit. He really should've seen this coming-adventure, whether he liked it or not, always found him faster than he could blink. Not that he complained all that much. He was used to it by now.

Though he wasn't really expecting what he saw in the bigger and angular room: thousands upon thousands of robots were passing by on a steel gray road. Sora could barely make out just one.

Eve's cart was turning again. With a jolt, Walle immediately followed her again, Sora coming up just behind him.

Now what was in the next room was what surprised Sora the most.

There were humans. It took Sora a few seconds to digest the shocking information. In fact, it wasn't the fact that there were humans here that shocked him, it was what they looked like. Every single one that passed by were abnormally obese. It wasn't just a small portion of the humans, it was every one. Though it wasn't the kind of fat that Sora had seen normally. The fat on these humans looked a little tight, making it seem more like baby fat. Were these humans just enlarged babies? Sora actually found himself hoping that was true...

But no. They were all talking regularly. At first he thought that they'd all been talking to themselves, but they were actually talking to these virtual screens that were floating in front of their faces, provided by the hovering chairs that all of them were sitting on. None of them even seemed to notice anyone else that were passing them by. They were just way too absorbed in the screen, almost hypnotized by them. Maybe they were so fat since all they appeared to do was sit in those chairs and talk away at their screen. Hell, they looked like they'd just fall over if they tried to stand up.

When Sora finally took it all in, he just blurted out in disbelief, "That's sad."

"Eva!" Oh, right, they still had a job to do.

Walle and Sora hastily followed Eve's cart through the road filled to the brim with fat humans. Eventually, the metal path opened up to the largest and most impressive sight Sora had ever seen.

All around him were various shops, restaurants, and advertisement signs(pointless if you asked him since no one was paying the signs any mind) that displayed strange varieties like "food in a cup", and the one thing that all these places had in common was that they were run by robots. On the ceiling hundreds of feet above them, a holographic screen showed a beautiful blue sky that could easily be mistaken for the real one. Sora and Walle found themselves stopping to gaze at everything in amazement and just take it all in. It felt more like they were in a city than a Space/Cruise ship.

A few seconds later, they were chasing the cart again. It was actually very easy getting past everyone. The robots were too busy serving the humans, and even when Sora frantically waved his hand in front of their faces, the humans would pay no attention to the abnormally dirty box robot or abnormally skinny adolescent.

Eventually the cart arrived at a cylindor shaped elevator. The two stealthily remained behind the red sirened robot even as the cart turned to face the opposite direction in the elevator. Walle just hung on to one of the carts ledges, while Sora was forced to stand right behind. Immediately he could tell that the elevator was only fit for robots since the cart was pressing painfully against his ribcage, but he could hold it. They were only going up two or three floors...hopefully.

Thankfully, that was true. On the third floor, the elevator opened up and the cart slid into dark room where a wheel was hanging from the ceiling. It looked like it was just steering itself for some reason. But when the red sirened robot did what looked like a salute with one of its tiny handles, the wheel lit up, along with the entire room. They appeared to be in a control room of sorts, like in an airplane, only wider and more complex. The wheel, it turned out, was another robot. In the center of the wheel was an eery red "eye" that peered at the cart that contained Eve. Sora had to hastily dive right underneath the cart to prevent himself from being seen. Lucky for him, the wheel took no notice. In fact, it didn't seem to see Walle there either, even though he happened to be hanging on to the cart and was clearly in sight. Instead, it towered over Eve and scanned her body. Walle saw that after he did so, the sign "A113" flashed across its eye, and it looked at the red sirened robot. The two probably just had their own inner conversation with each other since the sirened robot did a salute and turned back to look at Eve.

Walle took their distraction as an opportunity to hide. As quietly as he could, he treaded across the gray floor to hide under a gap that happened to be underneath the controls in the room. But just when he'd almost got there, he fell through a hole that had just appeared beneath him. Sora clamped a hand over his own mouth to cover up his gasp. For a moment he thought that the wheel had seen Walle and sent him through a trap door, but then the wheel also peered down the hole, still attached to the ceiling, and said, "Captain, you are needed on the bridge." Its voice was masculine, but it was monotone and direct. He showed no sign of emotion, and the fact that his large red eye never changed pretty much meant that he would be very hard to read.

To Sora's relief, Walle appeared in his boxed form back through the hole in the floor, but he wasn't alone.

In front of him there was another human. He really didn't looke that much different from the others- obese but with tight skin- the only difference was that instead of the red jumpsuits that the others were wearing, this man was wearing a white jumpsuit with a "BnL" sign on his chest, and on his black haired head was a captain's hat. The other humans looked a little drowsy and placid, but this man in front of Sora and Walle was the pure definition of TIRED. He didn't really look like he was up for any adventure or abnormalities...Since Sora just came, it seemed that that was about to change, the Keyblade Master thought with a sigh.

Walle had just snuck off under one of the controls successfully this time, and was frantically gesturing to Sora to do the same. Sora gave a nod of understanding and soundlessly crawled from underneath the cart and joined Walle under the controls. And in the nick of time, too- the cart moved forward to stand underneath the wheel.

"Captain," He said, "Probe number one has just returned Positive."

Any trace of sleepiness the captain had earlier was swiped off his face. "Positive...? Are you sure, Auto? No probe's come back positive...before." He looked unsurely and nervously at the still dormant Eve. But then "Auto" used one of his handles to type some sort of unknown code on her body, and her screen flashed to life with the two beautiful blue eyes that mesmerized Walle. And her body lifted itself up and her arms and head were detached and free once again. She gave a salute to the astonished captain. Sora felt himself smile with both relief and hope. Now that she was awake, they could take her back and go back to the trash planet...Hopefully she'd go back without a fight. Okay, that's stupid- of course she'd refuse. How would they convince her-

"Eva..." Walle murmured as he started to tread toward her. Sora took notice of that and hastily pulled him back. "Not yet!" He hissed urgently. Though whether Walle had even heard what he just said was impossible to tell. He had an unusual dreamy expression in his eyes-he was still staring at Eve.

The captain was now looking at book that showed the picture of a plant- the same logo that Eve was still flashing. He looked a little nervous every time he read aloud that they were "going back home" and "reconstructing" or anything similar to that. That actually caught Sora's ears every time that was mentioned. Where exactly was their "home"? That obviously meant that The Axiom wasn't exactly their true home. Then what was? And why would they want to reconstruct it? Did someone destroy their home? Did the HEARTLESS destroy it? That could definitely be the reason. Though Sora didn't know how it was possible to reconstruct a world destroyed by the Heartless unless you defeated the one leading them.

"'Place the plant into the Holo Detector located in the Lido Deck...'" The captain continued reading, "'That will activate a speed warp back to Earth, and Operation Recolonize will truly begin when you plant it.'" The plant? The one that Eve had? How was that gonna help restore a world taken by the Heartless? Was the plant secretly a weapon the Heartless feared?...Wow, Sora thought dully, that was so stupid to think-even for him.

Walle started to slide to the left underneath the controls so he could get closer to Eve. Sora saw it out of the corner of his eye, but he wasn't worried this time. As long as he wasn't spotted, he would be fine. And Eve wouldn't attack him...would she?

She just might, he decided darkily. All those other times she attacked out of paranoia or just plain anger were proof that she could possibly...Sora decided to follow Walle just in case. He started to crawl toward him.

Eve felt a tap on her shoulder as she continued listening to the captain read instructions out loud. She turned to the source. Oh, it was just Walle. She shook her hand while holding her hand in front of his face in a "not now" kind of expression. She was about to fulfill her directive; she didn't have time for interruptions...

Wait.

"Walle?" Eve was surprised that the captain or Auto didn't hear her. Her shout of surprise could've stirred the whole ship.

Walle cheerfully waved at her with a little "Yoo-hoo!"

"Hey, there." Sora waved, just as casually. Eve's eyes were so huge that they could've been mistaken for full blue moons. "Sora?"

Sora would probably be alright since he had a weapon. It was Walle she was worried about. With Go-4 so close by, he could easily overpower her box shaped friend. She hastily pushed him back and tried to demand why he and Sora were here, and scold him for how much danger they were in now.

To Sora it sounded like she was making confusing whirring sounds reminiscent of a computer jammed into a music box. To Walle, she was making the most beautiful music he had ever heard.

"Eva..." He murmured lovingly. Her body was white and smooth and shiny- nothing like his own grimy and brown body. Her eyes were like the blue christmas orbs he had collected and placed in his home- and they were one of his most valuable treasures. How was it possible that a robot like her could be brought into the world? She must've been sent from Heaven-that was the only explanation he could think of. He gave a long wistful sigh. She was so pretty when she was distressed...

Sora choked back a snicker. Eve was now staring at him and looked like she wanted to ask, "Are you even listening to me?" Walle looked like he was dreaming with his eyes open now.

"'Voice Activate(Eve shifted back into place upon hearing the captains voice again), Confirm Aquisition'"

"Confirm Aquisition." A female computer voice echoed across the room. All the lights in the room dimmed. Seconds later, what looked like a video camera appeared out of a whole in the ceiling and started scanning the room with a blue light. When the scanner landed on Eve, the light turned green, and a robotic claw appeared out of another whole in the roof that was right above Eve, holding her in place. Walle gave a little warble of fright, and Sora held him back with a "Shh".

The claw used one of its fingers to type another code on Eve's chest, and her compartment slid open. The captain nervously braced himself to find...nothing.

Eve's compartment was empty. She gave a shout of panic.

"Where's the thingy?" The captain asked, bemused.

"The plant." Auto corrected.

"Right, right. Where is it? Did we miss a step?" He turned to look back at the book.

"Plant!" Eve murmured desperately, feeling inside her compartment just to check if it had somehow dissapeared from sight. She KNEW that she had it. It had been in her compartment ever since Walle-

Wait a second.

"Walle." Her eyes curved downward into angry crescents. He was the one who showed her the plant, but he obviously hadn't meant to give it to her. He must've somehow figured how to crack the code and take the plant back, that little...Sora couldn't have taken it. He looked way too stupid to figure out something as complex as her access code. Without a doubt, it was Walle.

She angrily shook him and lifted him off the floor to see if he was sitting on it. Then she forcefully pried open his own compartment to see if he just stored it in there. Nothing. Did he lose it along the way? Dang it, she was never gonna fill her directive now! She frantically started scanning different parts of the floor to try and find it.

Sora glared up at her. The accusing way she said "Walle" was enough to fill him in on what she had been thinking. "He didn't do it-I was with him the whole time!" He snapped, though he was slightly frustrated that he had to keep his voice down. He felt like he wanted to explode right now.

Eve just glowered at him coldly and continued scanning the floor. Walle stared at her curiously. "Eva...?"

"PLANT!" She snapped.

"Oh!" Walle exclaimed, then he tried to look for it as well, feeling the floor with his hands to make sure he didn't accidentally tread over it. Sora stared at him incredulously. How could he not notice that Eve was angry at him? Or did he even mind?

"There is no specimen." Auto's cold voice halted Eve's antics and brought her back in position. Walle kept searching. "Probe's memory is faulty." The wheel stated.

"So...we're not going back to earth?" The captain asked.

"Negative."

"I guess things go back to normal then...Well!" He slammed the book closed with a somewhat relieved expression on his face. "False alarm!"

The scanner slid back into its hole and the room lit up again.

"The Probe must be defective." The captain decided.

Eve had never felt so humiliated in her entire existence. Damn that Walle...

"Go-4, take her to the repair ward." The red sirened robot saluted and shined a red light around Eve, which carried her back to the cart. Eve looked unusually pissed as she was sat back on. "Make sure she's not broken and just give her a little-AH!"

Now that Eve was out of the way, the captain had just noticed Walle, who was still searching for the plant. Sora held his breath as he awaited the inevitable: What Walle was destroyed or dismantled? Would the captain be merciful enough to just send him back home? He seemed like an okay guy...

Walle, instead of looking scared and curling into a box again, simply treaded toward the captain and shook his pudgy hand. "Walle." He greeted happily. The captain stared at his hand, which was now covered in dirt, in slight disgust.

"Have, er, 'Walle' cleaned." He told Auto. Auto gestured Walle to the cart, and the boxed robot excitedly got on, mostly because he was sitting next Eve.

Sora's wide eyes were focused on the cart. How was he going to get there without being noticed? Maybe he'd wait until Auto had his back turned and the captain was back under the room-

"Hey, who're you?"

Uh-oh.

"Hey, can you hear me? I said who are you?" Well, it was no use hiding now. He'd been spotted. Sora awkwardly crawled out and stood tall, glancing around the room nervously. The captain was just staring at him in awe, like he'd never seen anything like Sora before.

Sora couldn't let him know he was human-the captain would wonder why he didn't look like any of the others. What could he say?

"I uh...I'm a robot...too?" He finally stammered out. If the captain was gullible enough...

"What's your name?"

"Sora, sir."

"What's your directive?" The captain had raised a suspicious eyebrow.

Sora's eyes contracted nervously. He really hadn't thought that through. Not that he had time to anyway. Maybe he could say that he was made to fight...but it didn't seem like the ship would need something like that. What else was there? Something that every human would want.

It hit hiim like a hammer. He summoned his Keyblade. "I uh... am designed to hold the key to the bathroom."

Wow, Sora thought yet again, that was so stupid even Goofy would be ashamed of that lie. The captain's suspicion looked like it was rising.

"He's...probably defective." The captain decided at last. Sora felt almost shaky with relief. "He has all the makings of a fine robot though. Strange design in fashion," He eyed Sora's clothes. "Spiky blades, probably for protection," He added looking at Sora's porcupine of a hair style. "And an interesting body. He almost looks like what we used to look like."

Oh, so the humans weren't always fat. They must've been there a long time to gain that much weight though.

"Alright, Auto. Send Sora to the Repair Ward as well. Make sure they give him a worthwhile directive or something like that."

Auto once again gestured toward the cart and Sora obliged. He sat down on the edge of it next to Walle. Walle cheerfully waved to Sora, who waved back, though not exactly as heartily. When Walle tried to wave to Eve, she just glared at him, which immediately shut the poor thing up.

Sora sighed. What had he gotten himself into?


	4. Rogue Robots and Dancing

Sora felt more like a prisoner than a patient.

The duo of Walle and Sora, now turned trio with Eve in the mix, were still sitting on the cart that was taking them to an unknown destination. Well, it wasn't exactly unknown since they knew that they were going to the Repair Ward, but they've never been there before.

Eve was always described as flawless by her creators, and even Auto had put into her records that out of every Extraterrestrial Vegitation Evaluator probe, she was the most dedicated, strong, and fearless. Her shooting range was always precise(she would NOT count that time that she missed that idiot, Sora), she always came up with the best strategies, and she was even the very first to feel basic emotions. All the other probes were bland and practically lifeless like every other robot on the ship because they were only made to follow their directive. But Eve, though her directive meant more than anything to her, could still feel curiosity, happiness, anger, and even sadness. She was absolutely perfect... So why the hell was she labeled as defective? She never should've met Walle. She never should've trusted him for even a second. She couldn't even believe she had liked that no good thief. Everything would've been fine if she had just never met him. Well, sure he was the one who found the plant in the first place and was kind to her and...no. It was all his fault. He was a horrible robot.

Walle had never been to a repair ward. Back in his home, whenever a part of his broken, he would just look for another shut down Walle unit, take off their perfectly working part, and replace his own with theirs. He was pretty sure that they didn't mind. They never moved when he took them, so it was probably their own way of saying "Sure, have whatever you like". The fat man mentioned that he'd be getting cleaned. Maybe that meant that he would be nicer to look at. He would like it if Eve looked at him the way he looked at her. Right now, she wouldn't spare him a single glance. He knew she was angry at him, but still didn't really understand why. But that wasn't important. What was important was that he had to cheer her up. He'd make it up to her somehow. She liked plants, so maybe when he, Eve, and Sora went back to earth, he could spend the next year searching for as many as he could get his hands on. Anything to make her happy.

Sora wasn't as curious as Walle, nor was he as angry as Eve. He was probably somewhere in the middle, while also feeling a little bit of impatience. All he wanted was a way to get back to the trash planet with Walle and Eve. But Eve wouldn't cooperate because she blamed Walle for something he wasn't responsible for, and now they were being treated as broken robots. Sora had no idea how they were going to "fix" him when he didn't need fixing in the first place. And he started worrying that they would try to open different "compartments" of his by tearing his skin and opening up his head to see his "inner functions". He had to escape now, but he couldn't. His wrists were cuffed together tightly by a shiny blue light that felt uncomfortably warm against his skin. Walle and Eve had them wrapped around their bodies so they couldn't draw their arms out. Sora's fists were so close together that he could barely uncurl them to summon his Keyblade. But asking for a fight would probably be stupid anyway. So many robots were around. The humans couldn't do anything, but the robots probably could. He would just have to wait for the opportune moment.

About five minutes later(Sora just assumed since he wasn't really keeping track of time), the cart finally stopped at a door. It opened, and the cart slid inside. And on the inside were some...interesting looking robots. Most of them were shaking uncontrollably and spouting out nonsense or just repeating the same words over and over again. And all of them were restrained behind the same blue light that was wrapped around the trio. The captain may have thought that Eve and Sora were defective, but he probably had never even seen how bad all the other robots were.

They stopped right at the front of the door, and a mechanical claw came out of a hatch in the ceiling and turned the reproachful Eve around after stripping off the blue light around her and Walle's bodies along with Sora's wrists. Sora massaged his wrists with a sigh of relief as he watched the claw place a red object on Eve's chest. Then it pressed the yellow button that was in the middle of the object, and Eve immediately shut down. Then the claw picked her up and started moving her farther down the room and into another door at the very end. Walle gave a warble of fright and tried to go after her, but the claw grabbed him and attempted to put a red object on him as well. Sora gasped and hastily moved Walle out of the way and scrambled out of the cart with the robot in his arms, trying to make a dash toward the door Eve was in. He knew he was in trouble now, but he was only trying to formulate a plan as he went along. He was sure he'd be able to find some way to escape without breaking a few limbs.

"Just a trim?" Sora almost slammed into a pink cylinder robot that was now powdering white stuff all over his face. "Hey! What the-?" Sora couldn't get the words out since it kept slamming the powder directly into his mouth every time it opened. And it didn't even stop there-he could feel it trying to smear lipstick on his mouth but failing since he kept moving around violently. Finally it ceased, but not before holding a mirror in front of his face. "You look gorgeous!" It said in a perky female voice.

Sora cringed in horror at the sight of hideously packed on make up that had also somehow got stuck in his hair. To his relief, a claw picked up the pink robot and placed her behind one of the blue prisons. He started to run again, but the claw latched onto his back as well, and placed him and Walle behind another blue wall. Cursing under his breath, he attempted to wipe all of the make up off of his face as Walle stared around the room curiously.

On either side of the room, rows of the small blue prisons held at least one robot. Some were shaking so terribly that the claws would have to wrap the blue substance around their entire bodies, like they did to this massage type of robot that was slamming against its prison way too hard. Right next to Walle, a vacume type of robot appeared to be wheezing. Walle edged closer to have a better look, and suddenly it jolted up and "sneezed" dust all over Walle's face. The startled Walle turned to look at Sora, whose face was switching between suppressed laughter and awkward sympathy. He wiped off the dust and grime with his shirt, leaving Walle back to his regular grimy self.

It didn't really look so bad, Sora thought as he continued to gaze around the room. If the worst they did was strap them with the blue substance, then he was probably in good hands. He just prayed that the fixing wouldn't hurt...

Sora winced when he heard a screech coming from the inside of the door that Eve was in. Maybe it wouldn't be as painless as he hoped...

"EVA!" Walle was going positively mad now as he continued to stare at the door. Sora turned to see why it was causing such an uproar. Through the see through door, he saw a mechanical arm massaging the bottom of Eve's head...but it was causing her head to move so far away from her body that it looked more like decapacitation. Though Sora was fairly convinced that Walle would learn soon enough that she wasn't in any real danger-

Walle had started firing a laser from the middle of his eyes directly at the blue substance that was blocking their prison. Sora's pupils contracted in panic. "Walle, NO!"

Too late. Walle awkwardly tumbled out of the small prison, and, as if things couldn't get any worse, the floor he thudded against happened to hit a play button on his chest.

"Put on you sunday clothes, there's lots of world out there!" The loud cheery voice coming from Walle's speakers was more than enough to attract the attention of every robot in the room- defective and security alike. Sora, regretfully finding no time to roll his eyes, snatched Walle up and ran to the room Eve was in, summoning the Keyblade in the other hand.

"Okay, change of plans," He told Walle breathlessly, "Get Eve and GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

A crash, and Sora and Walle had entered the other room, Eve staring incredulously at them. "Walle...?"

Walle, still thinking that Eve was in danger by the metal hands that were near her, searched around for some sort of weapon. He had no idea how to use them, but he had to fight to get Eve out, right? Then he spotted Sora's giant key-it was perfect. It was big enough to smash things! He tugged it out of Sora's hands.

Sora gasped as Walle held onto to it, though the weapon was facing backwards towards the other room. "Er, Walle..." He approached him slowly so he wouldn't jump and accidentally activate a spell. "You really don't want to-"

However, the threatening movement of one of the claws had Walle involuntarily shudder and increase pressure on the Keyblade, and confirmed Sora's worst fear: He accidentally activated a Fire spell.

It all felt like everything was going in slow motion. The hard vibration in his throat told Sora that he had just shouted "NOO!", and by the look on Eve's face, she had reacted the same way. It felt like his ears had suddenly gone numb, for he could not hear anything now except his heart thumping roughly against what he could've sworn was his head. The fireball zipped through the Repair Ward, heading into the last place the trio in the room had wanted it to hit: The Power Supply for this room. A second later, the Keyblade FINALLY decided to return to Sora's trembling hands...Sora could feel his face growing hot with anger.

"WALLE!" He shouted, and he could barely hear Eve's voice simultaneously shouting that as well, though her anger sounded white hot compared to his own, which was mainly just stemmed out of frustration. He had wanted to find a subtle way to escape since most of his LOUD attempts to escape in other worlds had often stuck him with an exhausting fight, and now Walle's antics had pretty much cornered him into another one.

But when he saw all of the threatening mechanical claws shut down and hang limply from the ceiling, Sora's anger ebbed as quickly as it came...Until all of the defective robots were able to get out of their prisons since the power was the only thing that could hold them back. Walle awkwardly pressed the stop button on his self installed stereo and turned to Sora with frightened and guilty eyes. Sora stared back, his expression unreadable.

All of the defective robots left their prisons with warbles and whirs of excitement, and for some reason they kept staring around the room like they were looking for someone. But they immediately stopped when they all laid their eyes on Walle. As if following a telepathic mutual agreement, every single one of them crashed into the room and raised Walle high into the air like they were hailing a hero(though Walle did not look like he was enjoying it at all). To make matters worse, they carried him right out of the room-and not just out of the repair room, but right out of the ward and directly into the depths of the ship.

Next to Sora, Eve let out a groan of frustration and flew off in Walle's direction. Well, that was probably a good sign...either that or she was doing it so she could kill him personally. He hoped it wasn't the latter. Though most of the anger had faded from Sora, he still felt a little frustrated like Eve. But he still had to save him, and Walle didn't know any better anyway. Sora proceeded to follow Eve.

Walle was having the worst time of his life. Never mind the fact that a bunch of robots he barely even knew were taking him away from Eve and Sora, but he'd just never seen them so angry before. Not even Eve had ever looked at him with such hatred and resentment, and never had Sora ever raised his voice at him even once. He'd had the one chance to make it up to Eve by saving her life, and it may have cost him his friend and love. Nothing could get any worse than that.

But it seemed that it would as the robots carrying him suddenly halted. Walle felt himself fall forward(one of the robots released its grip on him) right in front of the menacing, bulky robot bodyguards that now stood in rows before them all. On each of their "television screens", a red hand was displayed, and it was holding out all five fingers in a "stop" motion.

"Halt." He heard all of them say simultaneously. He started trembling again as a cold feeling of dread and fear took him over. He also had a bad habit of shivering and not doing anything else when he was terrified...What were those things going to do to him?

"Walle!" The little almost shut himself into his boxed form when he heard two voices shout his name. But it turned out to be Sora and Eve. He wasn't sure whether he should be relieved or even more terrified.

Sora picked up Walle and said quickly, "Okay, Walle, let's just go and find some way out. Don't worry, we'll-"

"CAUTION: ROGUE ROBOTS."

Sora paused and turned to stare straight in front of him. He hadn't even noticed those robots until now. But their unexpected appearance wasn't what caused him and Eve to emit a gasp of shock; it was the pictures they were all showing on their screens. All of them were the same picture: Sora picking up Walle with a look of panic on his face, with Eve glaring daggers at both of them. Right underneath the picture was a sign that flashed "Rogue Robots".

Great. Like breaking out with defective robots wasn't bad enough. Now they were wanted criminals!

"Walle!" Eve turned back to glare at Walle again. But she didn't have time to say anything else. At the corner of the bulky robots, a red light was flashing dangerously, and it looked like it was charged and aimed straight at the trio.

"Crap!" Sora, about half a second before they could shoot, practically crashed into them with his Keyblade at the ready. He wasn't sure what those red lights did, whether they were lasers or some other kind of weapon, but he knew that they weren't good.

Eve was already of him, flying while carrying Walle right underneath her. Sora had to sprint at top speed to keep her in sight. Right behind him, the bulky robots weren't chasing them since Sora had destroyed nearly all of them in his haste, but the defective ones sure were. They were probably still wanting to worship Walle or something.

Eve finally hid in a dark corridor where not even her gleaming body stood out and crouched with Walle, who mimicked her. Sora, taking the hint, also dived right into it. Lucky for them, all the rejects sped past them all. Five seconds later, more bodyguard bots were following them.

Wiping sweat off his brow, Sora stood up a little to stretch out a bit. Walle turned to him, still looking very nervous and scared. Sora sighed at his pitiful expression, and gave him a halfhearted pat on the head. He just couldn't stay angry at him. "It's okay. We'll work this out somehow."

Eve looked positively livid, however. She was making all sorts of nonsense whirs and high pitched screeches that Sora was surprised went unnoticed by passerbies. But he was able to get some of her hand gestures. First she kept pointing fiercely to her plant insignia, then to Walle, then she pointed out the same picture of the trio that was flashed as "Rogue Robots" on a nearby screen. Sora felt anger boil up inside him again.

"For the last time, Walle did NOT take the stupid plant!"

Now Eve directed her ferocity on him, while still pointing to the picture. Sora just glared back. Okay, maybe the fact that the three were now wanted criminals was partly Walle's fault, but he didn't mean it at all! He was just trying to save her-what other explanation did she have that he crashed into her repair room?

"Look, it wasn't his fault! He just-! He was trying to save you!"

Well, that hadn't been the right thing to say at all. Sora could practically hear the circuits in Eve's body overheating. Her crescent eyes were narrowed and downward so much that they were mere furious slits on her screen. Obviously she didn't believe him. Sora reproachfully glared back. Behind him, Walle shook uncomfortably.

"How do you know YOU didn't lose the plant? Do you just immediately blame someone else even though all the evidence just points to yourself?" The words were out before they even came to Sora's head. But a second later he already knew that he had said too much. Eve, with her lightning fast reflexes, shot out her gun and aimed it threateningly at Sora, but he did not back down. He could easily fight her back. If she shot, he couldn't care less. All he wanted was for Eve stop blaming Walle for a crime he didn't commit.

For seconds, minutes, or even hours-Sora couldn't tell- the two just glowered at one another, invisible sparks flying between them. Finally, Eve's eyes grew rounder when she looked past Sora into a window. Sora didn't bother turning around to register what had captured her attention. Suddenly, Eve seemed to have a satisfied look flicker over her eyes, then she grabbed Walle and fixed Sora with a cold stare, holding out her other hand. Sora stared at it like it was crawling with vermin, before reluctantly grabbing hold. She pulled him rather violently away from the corridor when the coast was clear.

"Hey, where are we going?" Sora demanded as Eve showed no sign of slowing her pace though she was practically dragging him across the floor. She just stared resolutely ahead, with Walle, who now looked a little happier, held in her other arm.

XXX

One trip through an elevator later, the trio of fugitives reached a round and dark room, where Eve found a keyboard of some sort and proceeded to type something in it. Sora had absolutely no idea what she was planning. For all he knew, she was probably just gonna blow him and Walle to smithereens after that last fiasco.

Almost unconsciously, he turned to see how the little robot appeared to be handling the situation. He expected him to still be shaking a little, but instead he looked quite calm. Placid, even. He wasn't staring into space or anything, but he was focusing intently on Eve's hand that wasn't typing, but hanging stiffly by her side. Walle proceeded to place his own two hands together, then returned to gazing at hers with the same longing expression he always carried when he was around her.

Unbelievable. Even though Eve blamed him for so many things, even though she was so livid with him, and even though it seemed impossible that the two would ever get together, Walle was still deeply in love with her. Sora honestly felt both impressed and exasperated at the same time. For one thing, despite the fact that Walle was a robot, he had shown just as much-if not more-heart than any other friend he had made in any other world, and not just because his love for Eve could never be broken, but because of his kindness and innocence that he showed to everyone around him. He'd never give up on Eve, even if his love always remained one-sided.

A few blue flashes, and something in front of the threesome lit up. Before them, at the very end of the room, was a round pod that lit up with a white light. Eve stood before it, and gestured toward it. "Earth." She said simply.

Walle and Sora stared at her in confusion. What did she mean? The pod was probably meant to transport them somewhere, but where was Earth?

"Earth." She repeated with an edge of irritation, and this time she gestured toward a screen that was above the pod. Displayed on it was a picture of round blue ball with splotches of green in various places. Walle suddenly warbled in understanding and turned toward Sora, gesturing toward himself, then back to the picture.

"Huh?" Sora felt more befuddled then before. Walle just kept repeating the hand signs over and over again. Sora slowly came to a realization. "Oh! The trash planet!" Walle nodded enthusiastically, grabbed Sora's hand, and pulled him into the pod. This was good, then, Sora thought, at least now they could go back and Sora could finally get Donald and Goofy to take him out. He'd wasted so much time following Eve...

Walle sat on one of the cushiony couches that was stored inside it, banging his treads together casually like a kid waiting at the doctor's office. He turned to Eve and pat his hand on a vacant spot of the couch. Sora already knew what was coming: Eve shook her head with a cold look on her face. "Directive." She stated, pointing at her plant insignia.

Walle didn't like that response at all. He defiantly sped out of the pod and placed himself before Eve, curling into his boxed form determinedly.

"Walle..." Sora rolled his eyes, leaving the pod for a moment to pick Walle up and place him back alongside himself. "We have to go. It's obvious we're not wanted here." He glared at Eve, who determinedly avoided his gaze.

Sora could not remember why he had so enthusiastically agreed to help Walle find a companion in Eve. He should've been able to tell that Eve would never be willing to stay with him. She would probably easily trade his life for a plant if she had the chance. He was forced to believe that whatever friendship that Walle had shared with Eve was over, along with the chance of finding love with her. But he wasn't giving up yet. Maybe when he got back with Donald and Goofy, he could ask them to build a robot to accompany Walle. He was pretty sure Donald could do it with his magic, and Sora would never want to see Walle left all alone in that lifeless world...

Sora had been so busy swimming in his own thoughts that he hadn't noticed Walle shifting back out of the pod and next to Eve. "Walle," He heard Eve say in annoyance. But before she could do anything else, there was a loud beeping sound coming from the elevator.

Someone was coming up.

Gasping in panic, Eve hastily shut the entire room down, bathing everything in darkness once again. Sora hastily hid in a corner that was too dark for anything to be spotted, and crouched down, not even caring that it was cramped. He felt rather than saw Walle and Eve crouch beside him, both in their enclosed forms.

Out of the elevator came the red sirened robot, Go-4. That was enough to get Eve to peer curiously as he sped past them, thankfully not noticing their presence. What was he doing here, though? Auto never assigned him to explore anywhere but the captain's room and the EVE Probe Check room.

He typed in a few unknown letters on the Keyboard, and the pod sprang to life again. He entered the pod and, curiosity reaching its peak, Sora Walle and Eve turned their heads to the pod to see what was so important to place in there.

Out of his compartment, bathed in a red light, and placed roughly on the ground, was the plant.

"Plant!" Eve whispered in shock, and she heard stifled gasps from the other two as well. Go-4 was already starting to leave. The three hastily hid back in the corner until Go-4 went back to the Keyboard and started typing again.

"Walle..." Along with the discovery and relief of finding the plant safe and sound came the unwelcome surge of guilt Eve felt flooding over her body like filthy mud. Walle was innocent. Sora was telling the truth. Walle had never taken the plant and lost it or anything of the sort. And if Sora had been honest about that, then that must've meant that it was true that Walle had thought that Eve was in danger and was trying to "save" her. It was all an accident and misunderstanding. How could she have been so dense? It was obvious from the very beginning that Walle cared so much about her. Stealing and making her wanted by authorities on purpose was the last thing Walle would want.

And she blamed everything on him.

"Walle..." She turned toward him, her voice dripping with sadness and forgiveness. She would make it up to him somehow. He was bound to-

Where'd he go?

"Eva! Sora!"

Eve looked into the pod and her eyes widened into saucers. Walle was in there, and he was holding the plant!

"WALLE!" She made to make a grab for him, but Sora came in faster. He sped into the rocket and picked Walle up, about to haul him out, but before he could even put a foot forward, the pod's door snapped shut.

It blasted into space.

Go-4 left. He never even heard Eve's anguished scream.

"No!" She looked all around the room. There had to be a way out into space somehow. She didn't know how, nor for what reason, but she knew that Go-4 wanted to destroy that plant. And the only way to destroy it when it's on a pod was to have it crash into a planet, or set it to self destruction. Most likely, it was the latter. Either way, she had to catch up to them and stop the pod before it was too late.

At last, she spotted an airway tunnel that directly led into space, and shoved herself in it, shooting herself at almost blinding speed as she flew toward the ship.

Sora would've been screaming if he could move his mouth, which was occupied with being blown back by the G-force. As soon as the two had been launched, it forced Walle's backside to smash against the door and Sora to smash against Walle. For a few terrified seconds Sora thought he'd crushed him, until the ear splitting scream behind him told him otherwise. Either way, they were in deep trouble and Sora had no way of moving since they were flying too fast.

"Cruising speed." A female computer voice rang.

Sora and Walle immediately fell off the wall and painfully collapsed on the floor.

"You are now free to move about the cabin."

They both shot up and looked around for some way to get out. Luck seemed to be on their side as Walle spotted a control stick at the front of the pod, sticking out and lighting up red like a beacon of hope. He grasped it and attempted to tug at it and turn it around-anywhere, left, right, back, he didn't care. As long as it was away from wherever they were being sent to!

"It won't work, it's on Auto Pilot!" Sora exclaimed hopelessly at Walle's fruitless attempts. To make matters worse, the female computer voice said, "Twenty seconds til self destruct."

Sora gasped and stared desperately at the controls. He saw a tiny red button flashing up next to sign that said, "Cancel Self destruct". He pressed it eagerly...nothing happened. He repeatedly pressed it to no avail, starting to grow more frustrated and worried as the count down clock ticked down.

"Ten seconds til self destruct."

Next to him, Walle gave a high pitched shriek of fright and, for some reason, grabbed a fire extinguisher that happened to be in the room. He kept banging it against the window, apparently thinking that he could break it open.

"Ten...nine..."

Sora's breathing quickened. He summoned his Keyblade to help Walle try to break the window, but it was still shut tight.

"Eight...seven..."

"Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" Sora cursed everytime his Keyblade crashed into the window with no results. Walle was shaking worse than ever.

"Six...Five..."

So this was it. He'd come all this way, hoping to find Walle a love, and now they were both going to die trapped on a pod in space. In fact, Eve probably didn't even care. She wanted them out of the way anyway, right? Well, she'd be getting her wish...

"Four...three..."

...Wait a minute. There was still one more chance! He honestly wasn't sure if it would really work-odds are it would just implode in their faces- but it was all he could think of.

"Two..."

"WALLE! HOLD ONTO ME!" Walle obeyed and leaped into Sora's arms. Sora covered him with his whole body, held his Keyblade high into the air, and shouted one word:

"WIND!"

XXX

BAM!

Eve came to an abrupt halt more out of shock than anything else. A few feet away from her, the very pod that she had been chasing...exploded. With Walle and Sora still inside.

"No...no." It wasn't true. It couldn't be! They weren't dead- not right after Eve had realized that Walle was completely innocent. She wanted to make it up to him. At the very least, she wanted to apologize for being so cruel and heartless. But now...he was gone. She'd never have her chance to make up. There's no way he could've survived. Her only friend was dead...

And Sora had been telling the truth too. The only reason he had been so rude to her was because he was only trying to defend his friend with fierce defiance. He may have been stupid, but he knew Walle very well, and did actually seem to be a good person- at least to friends. But his death just didn't strike her as much as Walle's did.

She started forward again, not exactly knowing the reason. Maybe just to see one little snippet of proof to show that they were alive. Anything-

Something was flying toward her. It was small, but it was gradually growing bigger. All of a sudden, it just flew past her, leaving behind a shower of white sparkles, shouting in a comfortingly familiar voice, "EEEEVAAAAA!"

"Walle!" He was alive! Somehow, he made it through! Every negative emotion that Eve had felt seconds ago were snuffed out by the sight and sound of Walle. She eagerly chased after him.

What she didn't notice, however, was that Walle wasn't the only one who escaped unharmed. Or at least, not completely harmed.

Sora, half conscious and floating downwards and upside down to boot, stared straight ahead as he tried to rescramble his thoughts. His ears made odd screeching sounds that muffled out the voices of the two robots miles away from him, and his Aero spell had just worn off. Lucky for him, the spell had been powerful enough to block off the worst parts of the explosion, though there was now a small burn on the back of his right leg. The point was that he and Walle had survived. They were okay...

But how was he supposed to get through space? Paddle like a dog? At least Walle had the fire extinguisher to propel him. Eve could already fly. Sora had no way of doing it, and Walle and Eve were probably too far away to hear him anyway. That's just great...

But he COULD fly, couldn't he? Hadn't he already learned how in Neverland? But it had been so long- he wasn't sure if it would still work. But it was worth a shot anyway. Shaking the cobwebs out of his head, hoping that he was as awake as possible, Sora summoned the happiest thought he could muster.

Kairi kissing him...

Sora barely even noticed that he was already surging forward until he saw that Walle and Eve's shapes were getting closer and closer. When he was close enough, he yelled in excitement, "Walle! Eve!"

The two turned to him, both looking very happy. Walle gently pressed the handle of the fire extinguisher so he was brought to Sora. Eve flew forward until he could see her eyes, now sad crescents. Her look was enough to tell him everything.

"It's okay. Really." Sora sighed. Honestly he was still a little miffed about their squall, but for Walle's sake, he'd be willing to befriend her. And now she looked like she was in a good mood now that she knew that Walle was safe.

She gave him a happy nod and turned back to Walle, holding out her arms and approaching him like she was gonna hug him. But Walle accidently let loose some white sparks on her. Eve giggled and waved them away. "Walle..." She held out her arms again, ready to apologize.

"Oh, Eva!" Walle interrupted, holding out a hand. Eve stopped in confusion as Walle opened his box compartment and held something out. "Eva..."

Sora and Eve's eyes widened.

"You...I don't believe it..." Sora murmured, his face involuntarily blooming into a broad grin, "You got the plant?"

"WALLE!" Eve sounded absolutely delighted as she placed the plant in her own compartment. All of sudden, she embraced Walle tightly and started spinning him joyously, letting out a gleeful "WOO-HOO!" Behind them, Sora let out an equally blissful laugh.

Walle felt dizzy. Half because of elation that Eve was hugging him, and because he was spinning around so fast the stars were swirling all around them. Since Eve seemed to be comfortable with hugging him, he just decided to nuzzle into her neck tenderly. Eve didn't mind it. In fact, for reasons she couldn't comprehend, she enjoyed it very much.

Walle had absolutely no idea how much this meant to her. Eve knew that Walle saved the plant because he knew that it was important to her and he wanted to make her happy, and nearly gave up his own life for it. This was probably the second time he had helped her, the first being when he helped her out of the sandstorm. In fact, if Walle hadn't caused that ruckus back on the ship, the trio never would've found the plant...

He deserved so much more than a hug, she decided happily. So, she looked into his happy eyes that reflected the beautiful stars, leaned close to him, and sparked a kiss.

Sora gave a light gasp. That spark that he saw- that wasn't just a spark! And judging by the fact that Walle made an absolutely blissful warble as he limply let go of Eve and just floated there with a dreamy expression, he had thought the same thing Sora had. Eve kissed him!

Eve giggled at Walle's reaction and Sora's expression. The little robot had definitely enjoyed that, just as she had hoped. Though she had to admit, she honestly enjoyed that too. Even more than the warm nuzzle that he gave her. He was so sweet...

But she still had a job to do. And this time, she wasn't going alone.

"Walle? Sora?" She gestured back to the ship. Sora pointed to himself in confusion. "You even want ME back?" Eve nodded. "Why? Because I put up the protection field?" He wasn't challenging her or anything, he was just curious.

Eve widened her eyes again. Sora had saved them both? That changed her opinion on the young adolescent completely. He wasn't as dumb as she thought. All the more reason to keep him here. She nodded again, smiling with her eyes.

Sora returned the smile gratefully. "Let's go, then."

But to their surprise, Walle shook his head and activated his fire extinguisher in a direction that was not going toward the ship. "Yoo-hoo!" He called playfully. Eve giggled and followed after him.

Sora gazed in awe at the flying couple. Eve was actually putting her directive behind her for now to enjoy a moment with Walle? She must've been really happy...and he had a feeling that it wasn't just because he saved the plant. Sora had a sudden urge to join the two's fun, but he restrained himself and just floated there, enjoying the show. This was their moment, and he would let them savor it.

"It only takes a moment..."

That was the song that played through Walle's head as he and Eve twirled, soared, and danced through space, neither one stopping, neither one having a care in the world. Walle couldn't remember another time so beautiful and enchanting as this. In fact, the more time he spent with Eve, the less he remembered at all. Nothing else mattered to him except Eve. There was no one else in the universe except those two. They flew between rocket engines that emitted a mesmerizing purple glow, they twirled around the wings that dimly shined their bodies as blue, and Walle vaguely remembered passing Sora by, who waved to them happily and gave Walle a thumbs up.

But then it was over seemingly as soon as it began. Walle's fire extinguisher had reached its limit, and could no longer propel him. He let go of it and soared helplessly through space. Cold emptiness surrounded him as he no longer felt Eve's presence beside him. It was liking waking up from a wonderful dream into a world of darkness.

Then he felt something warm and smooth grasp him gently. "Eva..."

Eve gave him a tender smile. She had enjoyed their dance too. In fact, even she appeared reluctant to stop...

She beckoned Sora toward the ship, and the young boy obeyed. Together, the three entered the ship. They had to get to the captain now. With Walle and Eve's rekindled and even closer relationship, Sora felt like he could do anything now.


	5. Mutiny

The entire Axiom seemed to be jammed with limitless bodyguards. The ship's security had tightened Sora, Walle, and Eve were registered as Rogue Robots.

They hid behind a rob of towels that blocked them from view- only downside was that Sora had to crouch all the time because if he stood than his spiky hair would stick up from the hiding place and give them away. But for the most part, they were safe.

Eve peered through the space between the towels. Just like every other room they'd passed, this room was jammed with bodyguards. All she had to do was figure out some way back up to the captain's room. It couldn't be the elevator since she would have to pass security. And going out in the open was out of the question.

Sora wasn't exactly one for planning- that was Eve's department at the moment. So he just entertained himself by summoning his Keyblade over and over again and watch Walle's awed reactions. It never got old. But at one point, Walle took a second to just turn his head to see how Eve was doing, and again he found himself mesmerized by the sight of her hand sticking out, just begging to be held. If that last scene had any affect on her, was it possible that she...

He looked at Sora. Sora winked at him and whispered, "Go on.". Obviously he had the same idea that Walle had.

Eve's searching finally paid off. Just a few feet away from them was a garbage chute. But not any ordinary one. If she flew all the way up the chute, it would lead straight to the captain's room!

"It only takes a moment..."

Eve gasped. That music couldn't be coming from the ship.

"Eva..."

Just as she thought, Walle was the one playing it. For some reason, he had the strangest look in his eyes, and he was holding his hand out to her. What, did he want a high five?

"No!" She hastily pressed the stop button on his self stereo. She had no idea what he was doing, but if he'd let it play any longer they probably would've been caught. Maybe he just wanted to play. That explained why he looked so crestfallen when she did that.

"Er, Eve," Sora said awkwardly, "You DO know what he was-"

"Shh!" She gestured wildly to the bodyguards. Sora gave a silent "Oh" and a nod, though he still looked dissapointed.

"Directive." Eve reminded them both. "Sora." The young Keyblade Master perked up.

"Hm?"

She pointed to him, then over to the garbage chute, and up.

"Wait, you want me to go up there?"

She pointed to herself, then to the garbage chute again.

"You're going too?"

A nod.

"Why? Do you need protection?"

To his surprise, she nodded again.

"But you've got a gun. I don't see why you couldn't handle it all yourself."

She shrugged. In truth, she knew that that was true. But she just wanted to find some way to make it up to Sora for what she did earlier. She got the feeling that Sora hadn't completely put that event behind him. Maybe when they were alone(the captain probably wouldn't even be paying attention), she could give him a full apology. Like a handshake or something.

"But what about Walle?"

Eve sighed. She was afraid that was coming. She honestly wished Walle could come too, but if she knew the captain, then she knew that he wouldn't be pleased to find that Walle's physical appearance hadn't gotten any cleaner. It was probably best that he remained behind and hide.

She shook her head, then turned to Walle and pointed at the ground. And Walle not only understood but obeyed. He curled up in his box form and didn't move. Sora looked at him guiltily. "I don't know if this is a good idea...What if one of those bots finds him here?"

Eve shook her head rapidly. There was no way they'd check. Besides, even if they did, they probably wouldn't recognize Walle when he was just a box. And if they did...She was horrified at the thought, but she choked it down. It was for the good of her directive. She had to do it.

Sora casted one more uneasy glance at Walle. "Well...okay. I trust you." He was still very reluctant about it, but his own chance to convince Eve that Walle loved her...if he could explain what love was to a cold robot. But she seemed like she softened.

Eve nodded again and darted toward the garbage chute. She looked around to make sure the coast was clear, then beckoned Sora to follow suit. Sora ran as fast he could and ceased before Eve. She smiled reassuringly, then entered the chute and flew up it. Sora eagerly did the same.

XXX

With a CRASH that should've alerted the entire ship, Eve arrived in the captain's quarters. As soon as she'd made eye contact with the startled man, she quickly deposited the plant before him. His face changed from confused to excited.

"How...H-How did you find it?" He eagerly stretched out his hands and grabbed the plant, staring at it in awe. A most delighted look spread across his face, making Eve unconsciously smile too. She hadn't seen the captain this cheery for years.

"We can go back home! For the first time!" He was practically laughing with glee. "We-uh, what're you doing here?"

He was staring behind Eve toward Sora, who was now covered in bits of grime from the chutes untidy walls that he bumped into along the way up. He scratched behind his head nervously as he finally said, "I've found my new directive: To help you...get back home." He grinned.

The captain looked joyful again. "That's great! Oh, you should see what it's like there! When our fathers lived there, there was dancing, the bluest colors of the sky, and plants that grow food like pizza! Oh, what's it like now?" He turned toward Eve, shaking in anticipation. Though to his surprise, Eve backed away, and she was vigorously shaking her head.

Sora looked at her curiously. So she's been to their home before? From the way the captain described it, it sounded wonderful. Sora found himself wanting to find out what it was like now as well. But why did she look so reluctant? Was his own theory about the Heartless destroying it true?

"No, no, wait, I'll see it myself," The captain took out a tube of some sort and placed on Eve's head. Eve blinked, and almost immediatley from the end of the tube, a holographic screen came out, displaying Eve's visual memories and recordings of all that she had seen. But Sora wasn't prepared for what he saw.

All of those images that was apparently the humans' home belonged to the trash planet that he'd visited earlier. The Heartless hadn't destroyed it. Something else had. What?

"Eve...Who did that?" He desperately turned to her. He was starting to get a horrible sinking feeling that he already knew the answer to his own question.

Eve gave him a long, tragic look, but she didn't say anything. No, the captain answered instead. "We...WE did this...How...no..." He was stammering with shock and sadness, unable to find the right words to explain.

So Sora was right. The humans of the ship had destroyed their own home. He blankly continued to watch the scenes that were playing. He could see that Eve had tried to shoot Walle out of paranoia when they first met, and even got to see herself greeting Walle with her own name, and he was mispronouncing it like he did today. If Sora wasn't so shocked about the revelation about the trash planet, he would've laughed. Instead, he turned to the captain.

"Hey...What's the name of that world anyway?"

"Earth." The captain responded, staring intently at the plant.

"Well...You can fix this, right? I mean, I know it seems impossible and all but...there has to be a way. Nothing is actually impossible. And ya know what? I've been there before." He paused, expecting the captain to ask how, but he was just looking at him, waiting for him to go on. "Well anyway, when I first got there, I thought that it was absolutely lifeless. No one was there. I was all alone. But I ran into this robot...I think you already know him. He's Walle." He saw the captain quirk an eyebrow when he said that. "I also met Eve over there. But Walle showed her something- it was the plant that you're holding right now. It actually gave me this...this great feeling. It was a sign of life- a sign that showed that the world isn't completely dead. It's green and growing. Through all the turmoil that the Earth went through, it never gave up...It could be telling you that you need to get back there and save its world that used to mean so much to your people."

The captain gave him an absolutely awed look. Eventually, he looked back down at the plant and smiled fondly at it. "Hey...I'll be right back. This plant came a long way for a drink of water." He steered his chair into another room, and Sora and Eve were alone.

Eve seemed to have forgotten that Sora was there. She was still staring at the holographic screen, which was displaying that scene between the two lovers, playing that enchanting song that she'd taken interest in before. But when she heard it now, it sounded...different. Before she just thought it a neat phenomenon to experience and she could definitely understand why it was called entertainment for humans, but now...why did it make her feel so warm and so lonely at the same time. Something about those two, holding hands, looking adoringly into eachother's eyes, made her feel conflicted between sad and happy...longing.

She looked down at her own hands. She was glad she had two of them so that she could clasp them together. As she did so, she felt a little better that she could get a little taste of what the couple on the screen was doing, but it still wasn't satisfying. She wanted someone else to do it. Well, Sora was in the room. Would that work? Somehow, she didn't think it would.

"Eva?"

Her head jerked up. Did she just hear Walle's voice? Oh, she did. It was coming from the screen. These were the scenes that had been recorded while she'd been in her sleep mode. Walle was staring at her mournfully, crying, "Eva! E-E-Eva!" Hearing him make that noise filled Eve with anguish. She'd never heard him sound so troubled. Didn't he know that she was okay...?

But it didn't end there. It kept displaying all sorts of different scenes. Walle was shielding her with an umbrella, even though there wasn't room for him to get underneath. He didn't even abandon her when he was shocked by lightning several times. The next scene showed him raising a long tube over her to protect her from an oncoming sandstorm, but he didn't go into his home where he would've been safe. He just sat there next to her, shaking from the violent winds that were slicing him, and he never left her. Not even for a moment.

He...cared. He really, truly cared so much for her that he had been going great lengths to protect her from everything. Eve realized that him fetching the plant and taking her inside during the first sandstorm had definitely not been the only signs that he cared for her. How could she not have noticed it before? Why had she been designed to go into sleep mode while she had first retrieved the plant? If she didn't, she would've kept him company. She would never have left his side either.

Something about watching him do all those things was stirring something inside of Eve. It was a very peculiar sensation, but it definitely wasn't bad. No, it was the most wonderful feeling she'd ever experienced. Even better than the happiness she felt when Walle gave her the plant. But that feeling she was feeling was directed straight at Walle as she continued to think about him. Was it gratitude? No, that was such a weak feeling compared to that...what was it? Was it just extreme like? Something like that. There was a better word for that though. She'd heard it somewhere before...what was it? She knew how she felt for him, yet she didn't. She really...what?

Sora smiled fondly as he watched the screen as well. It looked like while he'd been sleeping in Walle's home, he'd missed out on everything Walle did to Eve. In fact, at one point it showed that he had rowed her through a river with an umbrella cast over her head, like what he'd seen Eric do for Ariel in Atlantica. Though the effect wasn't exactly as romantic since the water was so oily that you couldn't even tell it was water at first glance, but it was the thought that counted right? He even attempted to hold her hand as he and the dormant Eve gazed at the lovely sunset.

"You know...he really loves you Eve." Sora couldn't help but point out the obvious. It was just very sweet to see-even sweeter than the actual movie that Walle and Kairi had loved so much.

Unknown to him, Eve was very glad that Sora finally said the word that she was looking for.

Walle loved her.

And she loved him too.

"Walle..." She glanced at her clasped hands, feeling like she had found a missing piece to a puzzle. She was meant for Walle, and Walle was meant for her. Now she knew what Walle was trying to do back there-he was trying to hold her hand, and she was being so blind because even though she knew certain emotions, she had never experienced the complex emotion of love until she'd met him. He was so sweet, generous, innocent, and it now came to her that the reason he'd been following her half way across the universe was all out of love. Not even space would keep him from trying to be with her. Not even for a moment...

And she wanted to give it back. She wanted to take his hand too. She wanted to hold him close and never let go, always hear his sweet voice, always look deep into his wide, innocent eyes, and never leave him. It almost scared her to know that somehow she was able to survive before even meeting Walle and not understanding how wonderful it was to love someone and be loved back.

The captain, after giving the plant its much deserved water, had been staring at Sora, thinking about all he had said. Seven hundred years ago, every human on the planet had left because there was so much trash, and the oxygen levels were dropping dangerously. So the president of BnL had insisted that they all go to space. But...it was supposed to last for only five years. How come they were up here for so much longer? And why hadn't anyone bothered to figure that problem out and fix it? Nobody seemed to care for the Earth's well being as long as they were safe and well cared for. He admitted that he sort of liked that life since it was safe, but it was just so...boring. Everyday it was the same thing. He wakes up. He gives announcements. He messes with his computer. He goes to bed. Rinse and repeat every single day.

It wasn't until he decided to look up the planet earth that he realized how amazing it would be to live on a planet like that. Not only was everyone skinny from doing activities like playing and exercising, but it looked so beautiful! Especially compared to the sterile white and gray walls of the Axiom. The Earth that was displayed on Eve's screen wasn't the Earth they showed in the pictures he viewed. It looked like it would take years at the very least to make it look even a little like the old Earth.

But what Sora said...that certainly was true. The planet couldn't be completely dead. The plant wouldn't even exist then. The plant was a message for help, and it was a sign that it was possible for the Earth to come back. But it couldn't do it on its own. It needed help.

And they were the humans meant to do it.

"We have to go back." Sora glanced up at the captain and gave him an encouraging smile. Even though he had the feeling that he wouldn't be able to stick around long enough to help the world recover, the captain seemed to determined enough to do it. He looked like he could convince all the other humans of the ship to do it too.

"Auto, come down here." The captain shouted at a hole in the ceiling.

"Yes, Captain." Came Auto's monotone voice.

"Walle..." Eve was still staring, sadly and adoringly, at the images of Walle giving her so much love. Suddenly she had forgotten why she had even come up to the captain's room in the first place. All she could think of was Walle...But he wasn't in the room with her.

"Walle!" She had left him all alone on the ship! Sure he would listen to her and not get caught, but what if one of the guard's noticed him behind there? How could she have been so STUPID? She immediately took the tube off her head and headed toward the chute. She would get him. Then after they were sent back to Earth, she would live with him and love him and just like they both wanted-

She froze when Auto suddenly towered over her, peering intently at her for a few seconds, until the captain's voice caught her attention.

"Auto, Eve and Sora found the plant. Activate the Holo-Detector and we'll place it in there."

Sora didn't like the way Auto was looking at the plant. Something about his gaze made him feel uneasy. "Not necessary, Captain. You may give it to me." The wheel held out one of its handles like a hand, expecting the captain to obey. Sora felt his suspicions rising.

"No. Y'know what? I'll do it myself." There was no suspicion in the captain's voice. Just determination. None the less, Sora found himself relieved that he didn't hand the plant over to him.

"Captain..." All of a sudden, Auto was right in front of the captain, towering over him menacingly like a spider. "Sir, I insist you give me the plant." Something about his voice had changed. It was still slightly monotone, but it sounded more dangerous and forceful, like if the captain refused any more, he would attack him.

"Wha- Get out of the way, Auto! This is important!" The wheel still wouldn't budge. "We can not go home." He said sternly.

Sora and the captain recoiled in shock. "What are you talking about?" Sora demanded. "Why not?"

"That is classified."

"What is?" The captain asked.

"Give me the plant." Auto was stretching his handle out, trying to grab said item. But the captain was pushing him back. For a fat guy who never lifted a finger, he could sure put up a fight. Or a push.

"Tell me what's classified!" He snapped.

"The plant."

"Auto! Tell me what it is! That's an order!" The captain had finally stopped Auto from moving, giving him a stern look. Though the longer he stared at him, the captain only succeeded in making himself look a little goofy. Sora, despite the intense situation, found himself stifling laughter.

"Yes, sir." Auto finally gave in, going over toward a gigantic computer screen. The screen flashed to life, also playing a cheery tune for some reason. A man was on the screen, brown haired, slightly wrinkled, wearing a business suit with a BnL logo, and a strained smile plastered on his face.

"Hey, there, uh, Auto pilots...There's been a slight change of plans." His voice was as uneasy as the look on his face. "Due to rising toxic levels in the atmosphere, we've decided to form a close on Operation: Recolonize...So um, stay the course, and rather than trying to fix the problem, we figured that it'd be easier if you just all remain in space."

"Easier...?" Sora heard the captain mumble, looking both bemused and frustrated.

"Psst. Mr. President, time's up." Said an urgent voice in the video. The man's face got a little more troubled as he stated, "Okay. So uh, just go to Directive A113 and do NOT return to Earth- I repeat-do NOT return to Earth!" He put on a gas mask, and with a mumbled "Let's get the heck outta here," The screen faded to black, leaving a silent but shocked audience, gaping.

"Now. The plant." Auto held out his handle expectantly. But the captain still felt reluctant.

"No...hold on. Computer, when was that message sent?"

The feminine robotic voice responded, "Message recieved in the year 2110."

The captain looked thoughtful for a minute, then he shot up and glared at Auto. "That's nearly seven hundred years ago! Auto, things have changed since then!" It was at that moment that he realized how right Sora was. "Look at this plant: Green and growing! It's living proof that what the president said was wrong! Out there is our home! Our HOME, Auto! And it's in trouble! I'm not gonna just sit here and do nothing!...In fact, that's all I've ever done! That's all anyone in this damn ship has ever done! NOTHING!"

Auto was as nonchalant as ever. "On the Axiom, we will survive."

Sora couldn't help himself as he blurted out, "What's the point of surviving if you can't LIVE?"

"I must not follow my directive."

It took every ounce of Sora's willpower to prevent himself from pouncing on Auto and detaching him from the hatch. He was even more annoying than Eve had been when she insisted on sending him and Walle back home for the good of her directive. At least SHE showed actual emotions. She wasn't completely cold like this stupid wheel.

Lucky enough for all of them, the captain showed absolutely no sign of giving up. He straightened his hat on his head with a determined look on his face, and turned back to Auto as he said in a stern voice, "I'm the captain of this ship. We are going back home. TODAY."

Sora felt himself smiling boldly the longer he stared at Auto. He got the feeling that he wasn't going to go down without a fight...

Just as he thought, Auto suddenly sounded an alarm, and Go-4 came out of a hatch in the wall, approaching Eve.

"Go-4?" The captain asked in confusion. "What are you-?" The robot suddenly encircled the plant in the captain's hand with a red light, forcing it out.

Sora gasped. "What do you think you're doing?" Go-4 hissed threateningly. The captain flinched, but quickle regained himself. "This is mutiny! Eve, Sora, arrest that robot!"

The two nodded. Eve drew out her gun and Sora summoned his Keyblade. Both pointed their own weapons at him, glaring profusely. Go-4 hastily lifted his handles in a surrenduring manor. Eve nodded satisfactorily and gestured to the plant, then to her own hatchet. Sora smirked. "That's right. Give it here." Go-4 hesitantly obeyed, levitating toward them very slowly.

"Eve, Sora, place the plant directly into the Holo-Detector. It'll send us ba-!" Without warning, Go-4 suddenly tossed the plant out of reach. And of all the places to go, it shot right into the garbage chute.

"NO!" Sora, Eve, and the captain all shouted. For a few seconds, there was nothing but stunned silence, like they really couldn't believe that it was actually gone, or that there was some kind of hope that the plant would somehow just float back up and-

It did.

The plant was floating back up the garbage chute. Eve made a confused noise. Sora's mouth was ajar. The captain's brow was lifted.

"Eva?" The source of the "floating" plant finally appeared in the chute. In fact, the plant hadn't been floating at all. It had merely landed on the head of-

"WALLE!" The trio shouted with relief and surprise.

"Eva!" Walle sounded the same as well. He climbed right into the room, the plant landing on his chest. "Whoa!" He exclaimed.

Sora's happiness was replaced with fear as he shouted, "Walle! The plant!" Eve tried to reach forward for him, but Go-4 shot out a red light that suspended her without effort. Sora, who was still free, tried next to reach Walle, but found himself blocked by Auto, who was towering in front of Walle now.

"Give me the plant." Walle immediately decided that he didn't like that wheel. The plant was important to Eve- why would he force it out of her? Before Auto could chuck it away, Walle placed the plant into his own compartment, where Auto wouldn't harm it. Walle nodded determinedly. There was no way he was letting Auto jeopardize Eve's directive.

Sora smiled and gave Walle a thumbs up. "Nice one!"

But he wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Auto stretched out his handle. At first Sora thought he was gonna try to pry open Walle's compartment, but instead, the handle started to pulse with blue, deadly electricity.

He stabbed Walle in the charger.

"NOOO!" Eve screeched in anguish. Walle's face was switching between surprise, pain, shock, and horrible suffering.

"WALLE!" Sora heard himself scream. He already figured that Auto was determined, but how could he be so cruel to harm someone like Walle? Sora felt like he himself had been stopped by the red light around Eve. He couldn't move. He was frozen to the ground, and the worst part was that he couldn't stop staring at Walle's face. His horrible pained face...

After what seemed like an eternity later, Auto finally stopped. But the damage had already been done. Walle looked so weak and pained, and there was an ominous beeping coming from him. Walle's eyes looked dazed, but for a moment, they locked with first Sora's, then Eve's. Then, with a terrifying strangled warble, he fell down the chute.

"Walle!" Eve cried, fighting with all her might to escape the red light. But Go-4 was already bringing her toward Auto. But instead of getting merciless shock that Walle recieved, he instead pressed the yellow button on her red shut down that was still attached. Eve's arms and head immediately attached themselves to her body, and her blue eyes casted one last desperate look at Sora, before the screen turned black. He pushed her down the chute too.

The loss of the both of them finally woke Sora out of his trance. Boiling, red hot anger shot to his face and arms. He could feel adrenaline pumping through his veins, and he knew who he was gonna take it out on.

"You..." His voice started off as a low growl as he summoned his Keyblade, but it started to rise to an abnormal pitch. "...Son of a BITCH!" He felt himself lift his Keyblade behing his back, about to leap into the air and slam it into that damn red eye, leering at him like he was a pathetic child-

"Ow! Hey, what did you-?" He felt a sharp pain shoot through his arm, and looked at it to find the source. Go-4 had inserted something in him. His eyes widened when he saw what it was.

A sedative.

"Oh, shiiii..." He was already starting to feel the effects. The whole room started to sway before his eyes, and he briefly saw the captain's horrified face. He felt like he was going to collapse any second, but he had to fight against. He knew that if he gave in, something bad would happen. Because he...had to...do something. What did he have to do? It was getting so much harder to think and remember anything.

He strained his senses, just to figure out what was going on around him, and he could just barely feel someone pushing him. He didn't know who, but he saw a bright red light, and his vision was too blury to see if it was Auto or...that other bot whose name he couldn't remember for some reason.

He felt himself being crouched down, not that he minded. It was too hard for him to stand now, and he did feel like falling asleep...but he couldn't, could he? There was something he had to...what...

He was pushed, and next thing he knew, he was upside down and falling down somewhere. It was a really neat sensation, he had to admit. The sound of the air whipping his body was slowly lulling him to sleep, and the feeling of floating reminded him of another time when he'd been in space...when had he traveled to space? He flew in space at one point too. It was fun. He wished he could do it again soon. Maybe after this nap...

No, he couldn't. Something was wrong. He was supposed to be helping someone. Someone was in trouble. Somone he cared about. He couldn't...

His thoughts dulled. He couldn't think of anything now. What choice did he have anyway? Some sleep would do him good...

He crashed into oblivion.


	6. Broken

Pain. Dull, throbbing, aching pain. In his head. That was all he was aware. And something smelled really bad. His eyelids felt like they were glued shut. It was impossible to open. His thoughts were slow and jumbled, he couldn't think straight. What was going on? He remembered falling, and before that...nothing.

He finally summoned the energy to open his eyes, only to be welcomed by blurred colors of brown and black. He'd seen something like this before. Yes, he was pretty sure he'd been here before in fact. Was he back on that planet? That...trash planet...Walle had lived there.

Walle!

He jolted up, and instantly realized his mistake. Blinding pain shot through his spine all the way up to his head. His whole body seemed to shriek in protest to his uncalled for body reactions. He slumped back down, moaning in pain.

Had someone sent him back? He couldn't be back! Walle was in trouble, and he was still on the Axiom! He had to get up and save him. But how? He was in too much pain to get up, much less find Walle.

But he could heal, couldn't he? Though his muscles still ached, Sora reached a hand out, and felt the Keyblade form in its grasp. He shakily lifted it up over his body, and mumbled, "H-Heal."

A flash of green and pink, and Sora's vision suddenly cleared. The pain in his head and spine seemed to dissapear, like it had never even been there in the first place. Sora sighed with relief, and with a grunt, stood up on wobbly knees. The healing spell may have healed the worst of his wounds, but he still felt a little winded.

He looked around wearily. He was relieved to find that he wasn't back on Earth, but instead was instead a dump filled to the brim with trash. From various panels in the ceiling, more garbage was being dumped. With another jolt, Sora noticed there were two gigantic robots moving all over the place. They looked almost like Walle, but twenty feet taller and wider, and they had four eyes shaped like headlights instead of binoculars. They each did what Walle did: compact trash into cubes, of couse the cubes they produced were a hell of a lot bigger.

"Walle!"

Sora gasped. He thought he heard Eve's voice; it sounded desperate and scared, but very close.

"Eve? Where are you?" He whipped his head all over the place, but there wasn't enough light to brighten the entire room. But then he spotted in the distance a garage of some sort that the giant Walles were opening up and depositing their cubed garbage. And in one of the cubes, he saw a white figure squirming against something, looking like it was trying to pull something out.

"Eve!" Sora broke into a sprint, tripping occasionally over the smaller unnoticeable parts of garbage, and his head still felt a little heavy due to the after effects of the drug.

The closer he got, the more vivid the image of Eve pulling something was. She was tugging Walle out of the cube desperately, because the door the garage was already starting to close. Sora pushed himself to go faster, even though his legs were starting to ache he had no idea how his body would be able to stop the door from closing. And their was one thing that he remembered from his astronomy class: when a door to space opens, the vacuum will suck you up.

He wasn't gonna let that happen to his friends.

It was at that moment that Sora realized he didn't need to wedge his body in the door- he already had the right weapon to do it. He summoned the Keyblade, and with a grunt, he jammed the sides of it into the door, and held out his hand.

The door that led to space opened in the garage, and immediately all the air in the room was starting to suck up. Thankfully, Eve had managed to tug Walle out of the garbage, and was flying against the wind and debris forcefully pushing her back. Sora kept an iron grip on his Keyblade, and he no longer had to keep his hand up since the wind was doing the job for him.

Finally, Eve got close enough to grip Sora's hand. Sora's squeezed it, both for reassurance and to make sure his grasp was firm enough so she wouldn't slip. Walle was in her other arm. He looked terrible...

The giant Walles closed the door to space at last, and the trio plopped down onto the ground, slightly shaken.

XXX

Walle looked only half conscious whenever Eve or Sora glanced at him.

"Walle..." Eve murmured sadly. She was rubbing him gently while muttering soothingly, like her own touch could make his pain go away. Though he looked very grateful for her help, he still didn't look any better.

Sora glanced at his charger: a red warning sign was flashing and beeping constantly. But for some reason, the sight made Sora feel better.

"Don't worry, Eve...I think he just needs a charge. We'll just get him to the light, and-"

But Walle wasn't having charging problems. Eve opened up a smaller compartment on his chest, and looked at a circuit and memory board of some sort. There was a pint sized hole in it, and sparks kept sprinkling out like a firework. Sora felt his hopes drop like a rock in his stomach. Eve made a miserable sigh. Walle just stared on.

"Oh...um. Y'know, I-I'm good at healing magic...Maybe I can...This will work. Look." Sora picked up his Keyblade and held it over Walle, and concentrated all of his energy.

"Heal!"

The familiar flash of green and pink flew through the air and into Walle. Sora placed his Keyblade down and smiled hopefully.

Walle didn't look any better. Sora frowned worriedly.

"W-Wait, maybe I didn't concentrate hard enough." He lifted the weapon again. "HEAL!"

Still nothing. Walle looked up at him solemnly. Eve had her head down.

Sora felt a stinging in his eyes, and a lump was forming in his throat, but he choked it down.

"HEAL! HEAL!" Over and over he tried, and the more exhausted he felt after each time. He was starting to get a horrible feeling that he knew why Walle wasn't recovering.

His energy reaching its peak, Sora tried one more time, "H...Heal..." His voice broke, and as he expected, Walle still lay in a crumpled heap, confirming Sora's worst fear: Walle had no flesh, therefore he couldn't heal. Walle was as good as dead, and neither he nor Eve could do anything about it.

"I...I..." There was a stinging in his eyes again. He blinked, and felt two hot tears roll down his cheek and onto the dusty ground. He looked at Walle. Walle gave him a sympathetic glance. Unable to take it, Sora started to cry.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." He sobbed. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried. Most of the time, when something horrible was happening, Sora would hold in his sadness and smile and try to remain positive about everything. In every world, he didn't shed one tear no matter how hopeless the situation looked. He had to remain strong and in control, just like Riku. Even losing him and Kairi didn't get him down-it just made him more determined to find them. But of all the tragedies he'd come across, this just took the cake. All of the sadness that had piled up in his heart was finally just pouring out of him like an uncontrollable waterfall.

Seeing one of his dearest friends dying just made him reach his breaking point.

He could feel Eve encircling him in a warm hug, and if he hadn't been so sad he would've gasped in surprise. Eve was showing so much more emotion than she had before, and he had a feeling that seeing all the things that Walle did had something to do with it. She was more open and less proud, and he felt very grateful for it. Sniffling, he gladly returned the hug, and thought he could hear her sobbing too even though she had no tears to shed.

They finally let go to look at Walle again, who was still looking at Sora, his eyes filled with melancholy.

"Soooooraaaa..." He looked like he was trying to move, but was stumbling painfully.

"W-wait," Sora wiped his eyes. "Don't move, Walle. You're still hurt." He approached him, and the little robot held up both of his hands, beckoning one of them toward himself. Sora smiled bittersweetly, another tear falling, and embraced him. "I'm sorry..." Walle just pat his back reassuringly, as if saying, "It's okay. I'm still here..." But he wouldn't be for long. He was going to die...

Walle suddenly backed away and opened up his compartment, revealing the plant that caused this whole mess.

"Dir...rect...t-tive..." He drawled, dropping it into Eve's hands.

Eve stared at it blankly. The plant looked a little shriveled from all the rough things it had just gone through, but it was still healthy enough to be alive. Now that she had it, she could just easily fly up to the holo detector, maybe take down a few bodyguards along the way, and complete the Directive that she'd been built for.

So...why did she feel so hollow?

Normally whenever she glanced at even the color of green, a surge of excitement like no other would overcome her, fueling her determination. She was designed to feel that way so it would motivate her more. It always worked...except now. She felt absolutely nothing, even as she stared at it for a long period of time. The twinge that used to make her feel so excited had somehow died out.

She looked up at Walle, and to her surprise, she felt a spark shoot through her. The same spark she felt when she realized that she loved the sweet little robot. And this time it had nothing to do with the fact that he had given her the plant. The two were finally together again, and very close to each other. Walle may be...she didn't want to think about it-but he was still alive now. And he could still be fixed. She would do it-that would be her new directive: to fix Walle and love him. More than anything in the world, she wanted to spend the rest of her eternal life with him. A stupid and dying plant was nothing compared to the loving and dying Walle.

She threw the plant to the side, and gave Walle a gentle, nurturing smile. Before she would fix him, she wanted to give him what he had wanted for a long time.

"Directive..." She held out her hand, expecting him to hold it.

Walle knew that at that moment, he would've cried tears of joy and love if he looked like Sora. Eve had never looked at him like that before- so loving and warm...the surge of emotion that she was sending to him with her gaze just seemed to numb his pain, replacing it with a kind of euphoria that he had never experienced, and probably never will again. He just knew that now she truly did love him just as he did her, and she wanted exactly what he wanted. He slowly and eagerly stretched out his hand to grasp hers...

But he couldn't, could he? He realized sadly.

Sora was still crying-that obviously meant that something was wrong with Walle, and from the way Eve was acting before, he could be sure of one thing: he was going to die. He had to be fixed soon, and he doubted that there were any parts for him in the dump. If they never did find anything, it would probably be too late by then. There was only one place he could think of where there were parts.

Sora stared in surprise when Walle reluctantly pushed Eve's hand away, and began to tread toward the plant. He picked it up again, and held it toward Sora this time. "Eeeaarrrth..." He mumbled.

Sora took the plant from his hand and looked at it angrily, like he was trying to blame it for everything that had happened. In a way, that was true. But what did Walle mean by "Earth"? Obviously he meant the trash planet, but did he just want to go home to see it for the last time...?

"Earth? Walle, what do you mean?"

"Earth..." Walle repeated a little more clearly, then he touched one of his binocular eyes, and they started to move up and down, like he was trying to focus them...

Sora felt his hope soar sky high.

"EARTH! That's it!" He leaped back onto his feet, causing Eve and even Walle to jump. He turned to Eve with a big grin.

"All of his parts are back on Earth, Eve! We have to take the plant to...somewhere in the ship-I'm sure you know where it is- and place it there so it'll send us back! WE CAN STILL SAVE HIM!"

Eve gave an elated squeal and hugged Sora's ribcage so tightly it almost hurt. Then she hastily grabbed Walle with one arm, and with her armed gun, she shot at one of the escape hatches and flew upward. Sora immediately followed suit.

He glanced back down in time to see the two giant Walles waving at them.

XXX

Sora and Eve literally crashed through the wall blocking off the garbage chute. Auto probably placed it there just to make sure they surely wouldn't escape, but he underestimated the power of a robot who could crash her way through something two thousand times her own strength and a giant key.

But as soon as they turned toward a corner, trouble met them. A bodyguard that was holding one of the broken bots that escaped leered at them, activating its camera.

"We don't have time for you!" Sora snapped impatiently, lunging at it as soon as he heard the camera snap. He slammed his Keyblade right through it, and Sora just barely heard a weak "Halt" before it shut down completely, electricity showering out.

"Come on!" Sora beckoned, running forward. Eve didn't need to be told. She swooped ahead of him and flew so fast and urgently that Sora occasionally had to levitate himself just to keep up. He had a feeling that Eve knew where they were going, so he figured it was best that he just followed her.

"Caution: Rogue Robots."

A new picture flashed across the screens of the Axiom. The trio was still in it, but this time it showed Sora lunging at the camera furiously, Eve cocking her gun with a mad look in her eye, and Walle as wary as a child who just woke up from a nightmare.

Sora couldn't help but feel a stab of nervousness. That meant that Auto would know that they had escaped their prison, and he would surely be sending all sorts of bodyguards after them. He just hoped that he wasn't able to be stunned by their red lights.

"Testing, testing...Is this thing on?"

Eve and Sora stopped in shock when this time the screen of themselves was replaced with the captain's face, and he wasn't looking too well.

"This is your captain speaking, I am locked in my room." He was whispering like he assumed that only Sora, Walle, and Eve could hear him. But it was hard for people not to eavesdrop when every single screen had his face on it.

"Sora, Walle, Eve, bring the plant to the Lido Deck. I'll activate the Holo Detector to send us back to Earth. Now hurry! Auto's probably gonna cut me o-!"

"HALT!"

The screen flickered and died, and in front of the trio were rows and rows of bodyguards, just as Sora feared. But this time, they were ready. Eve shot plasma at the first guard she laid eyes on, and Sora threw his Keyblade in a strike raid down one row, knocking them out. Unfortunately, with every bot that went down, one would replace it. Auto definitely knew how to build up security.

One of them shot a red light at Eve's arm, hoisting it up and rendering it useless. Eve made a grumbling noise and shook it violently. One of the bots aimed another light at Sora's own weapon, but before they could do so, a familiar robot appeared in front of him with a frightened, "Oh, my..."

Sora's gasped happily. Coming from behind them was all of the robots that escaped the repair ward! They were all trying to help them! When the security bots shot more red lights, an umbrella bot appeared before them all, shielding them. Walle recogized a massaging robot that was shaking violently, like it was begging to joing in the fight-though it could've been because it was imprisoned by the strange blue substance. Walle fired his own laser at it, and that was it: the robot was free and all but slammed himself into the bulky bodyguards, destroying them all before they had a chance to take aim.

"Great job, Walle!" Sora nodded at him, and Walle smiled back feebly. "And of course to all of you guys," He nodded to all of the broken robots, and they all whirred with excitement.

Sora smiled and shot off with Eve, the broken robots close behind. The captain said to get to the Lido Deck, so that was exactly where they were going.

Why hadn't he noticed before that they had a pool?  
> <p>


	7. Sacrifice

The Lido Deck wasn't as empty as when Sora was there the night before. Every single human on the ship were there, with oxygen masks on them for some reason. Sora figured that it was because the captains of the past were still paranoid about the toxic levels back on the Earth, but he knew better. All the pools were sealed up and flashing green lights randomly-in fact, every light in the ship was doing the same thing. And at the very end of the room, rising steadily, was the Holo Detector, awaiting for its long overdue plant.

And located at the ceiling, where the artificial sky was normally displayed, was a screen showing the captain fighting with Auto in his room.

"Ladies and Gentleman!" He shouted as Auto was shaking him since he refused to let go of the wheel, "We are having a SLIGHT malfunction with Auto Pilot-Ow!-Please remain calm! Ow!" The entire time, Auto was monotonously telling him to cease and desist.

Eve finally dashed into the room, heading straight toward the Holo Detector, clutching Walle as he held onto the plant for dear life. Behind them, Sora skidded to a stop and looked at the screen. Auto was staring into it, leering down at them all like he could SEE them...

"Enough." It happened too fast. Auto finally managed to knock off the captain by spinning his wheel, and in reaction, Sora could feel himself slipping for some reason. It wasn't until he saw the humans slipping off of their chairs that he realized that Auto had tilted the ship so low that he could barely stand.

Before he could fall any further, he levitated himself up again and looked toward Walle and Eve. Eve had missed her aim for the Holo Detector and ran into it, causing Walle to lose the plant!

"No!" Eve gently placed Walle next to the Holo Detector and she and Sora flew through the crowd of slipping humans to find the plant. But so far, they couldn't find it anywhere. There were too many of them, and the plant could easily have been crushed by all of their weight. Eventually, all of them had ended up squished against the window at the entrance of the room.

Auto pushed a button, and all of a sudden a giant black rectangular object was rowing through the entire deck, crushing everything in its path. If the humans hadn't destroyed the plant already, that thing sure would.

"LOOK OUT!" A woman shouted at Eve, pointing right behind her. Eve whipped around and her eyes widened. The object was coming straight for them! She pushed against it with all of her strength, trying to push it back and prevent any murder. Sora quickly came next to her, "Hold on, Eve! I'll find the plant-just keep pushing!"

Eve grunted to show that she understood, and Sora was already off, searching between all of their bodies. But he couldn't find any sign of green. "Come on, come on..."

Behind him, Sora heard a mechanical whine. He turned around and saw ANOTHER rectangular crusher, and it was coming straight toward him! Auto knew what he was up to.

Sora hastily summoned his Keyblade and pushed it back against it, wishing that he had Eve's strength. But according to the strained look on her face, that probably wouldn't be enough. Sora heard more crowds of screaming people behind him, and realized with dread that if he abandoned them and went to find the plant, they would all die.

"Damn it...What else can go wrong?"

As if in response to his question, Auto pressed another button. Sora saw that the Holo Detector was starting to slide back into the ground, and this time it would probably stay there for good.

Walle flinched when he felt something move beside him. He looked up and saw that the Holo Detector was starting to slide down. He gasped. Eve was supposed to put the plant in there, wasn't she? The captain himself said that was where it went. Auto was trying to prevent Eve's directive from happening again! Walle had to do something.

He weakly treaded over to the other side of the Detector, and did the only thing he could think of: He placed himself underneath it and lifted with all his might.

Auto heard an alarm go off and looked back at the screen for the Lido Deck in confusion. Something was preventing the Holo Detector from going back in. He narrowed his red eye to get a closer look.

It was that trash compactor bot. Somehow, he was able to hold it up.

"No." He could not let anyone stop his directive. He pressed the button that made it shut down harder this time.

Walle felt it coming down on him. Hard. His parts were aching more than they ever had before, and he thought that he could hear some of them already giving way. But he wasn't giving up. Eve's needs always came before his-and all of those humans, including Sora, needed to return to his planet. He couldn't give up. He felt the lift starting to go high again thanks to his pushing, and felt a bit of renewal sink into him. Eve would be so happy that her directive would be fulfilled...and he didn't even care if he died trying.

"Walle!" Eve had finally spotted what the little robot was doing, and yelled in terror. If he remained in there any longer, he would without a doubt be crushed by the weight. Didn't he understand that she didn't want him to sacrifice himself? She would rather have the Holo Detector slide back in than let Walle risk having himself killed. But then, she thought, he only wanted what was best for her...all the more reason that somebody had to help him RIGHT NOW! Why didn't she or Sora have the strength to just break the damn rectangle and save him?

Sora kept looking back to the humans' terrified faces, and Walle's trembling but determined form. It was either leave the humans to die and save Walle, or leave Walle to be crushed but save the humans. He felt so torn, and he felt his grip on the Keyblade tighten so much that his knuckles were white. Somebody had to put a stop to this, and for once, and it couldn't be him or his companion.

Finally having enough of Walle's interference, Auto did a last resort: His handle pulsed with electricity and he all but shoved it onto the button, practically breaking it from pressure. The captain stared in horror. "NO!"

Walle could finally feel his unusual strength failing him as the Holo Detector fought against his weight harder then ever. He realized then and there, as he felt it go down, that just holding it up wasn't good enough. He was hurt, weak, and desperately needing rest. He wanted to move, save himself, and just hold Eve one last time, but he couldn't. Auto was going to do horrible unspeakable things to Eve and Sora, and it would be because he had given in, and he'd rather die than allow that. With that decided, Walle gradually let his strength leave him, and he felt one of his treads slipping near the Detector's opening, where it was too narrow for him to slide through. He would wedge himself there and stop it moving, then Eve could put in the plant and save everyone. He was going to die...but he allowed himself the happy thought that it was better than living forever and having never met Eve and Sora. He couldn't wish for anything better.

He slipped into the opening, and the detector crushed him in. His thoughts slipped into darkness.

"NOOOOO!" Eve felt numb with despair and misery, and she found herself praying that this was all a false image plagued onto her by Auto just to torture her, and that any moment she would reboot back in the dump and see Walle still alive; but the longer she stared at his pitiful dead form, the more she began to realize the truth: Walle truly was...dead. She was too late to save him, and the worst part was that he probably died for nothing because neither Sora nor Eve had the time to find the plant, and Auto was going to kill them both after he managed to completely crush Walle's body in.

Sora tightly shut his eyes, both so he couldn't see Eve's hopeless face, and to prevent more tears from falling. But he couldn't block out her cries and shrieks that echoed across the entire ship. Sora had no idea what to do now. He was stuck, Walle was dead, and even the plant was probably gone just like Walle. Behind him, the humans were screaming in horror...

Wait, they weren't screaming, they were...cheering? Why the hell would they cheer over an innocent robot's death? Sora opened his eyes, allowing the escape of a few angry tears, and was about to turn to glare at the humans until he noticed the screen overhead.

The humans weren't cheering over Walle's death, they were cheering because...the captain was standing and fighting against Auto! Sora found himself cheering alongside them, shouting at the captain to destroy the stupid wheel and regain control of the ship, just like he was meant to.

"Auto!" He heard the captain's strained voice over the intercom, "You are relieved of duty!" He pressed a button that was right on Auto's handle.

"Nooo..." Auto finally shut down, and the crowd was howling with cheers. The captain smiled in satisfaction and turned the now vacant wheel, finally allowing the ship's tilt to return to normal.

Eve didn't waste any time as soon as she was free. She zipped over to the Holo Detector, trying with all of her strength to lift it back up, but to no avail.

"PLANT!" She cried. "SORA! PLANT!"

Sora gasped and started looking around for a source of green. All the humans around him, probably inspired by the captain's bravery, were attempting to stand up, making it much easier to look around. Sora finally spotted the shriveled plant in the boot and held it up proudly.

"Eve! I found it! I found the plant!" In a throw that would've impressed a professional baseball player, Sora tossed to Eve, who grabbed and shoved it roughly into the Detector's opening. It paused its moving as a computer voice said,

"Plant Origin Verified."

At last the Holo Detector was rising back up, and in moments Walle would come back out. Sora flew over to where they were, and nervously waited beside Eve, hoping that somehow he had made it through...

Walle's body tumbled onto the floor. The left side of him was dented and torn, some loose gears pouring out of him. His left eye was crushed and sightless, while his other was closed tightly, like he was having a nightmare. The entire time, he hadn't moved or said a thing.

Eve cried out and embraced Walle, pulling his toward her eyes like she was begging him to look at her. Sora felt his knees give way and he fell onto the ground, banging his fist against the steel floor and freely allowing tears to flow. Now he was even less than sure that they had a chance of fixing him. In the condition he was in, was that even possible?

"Returning to Earth in ten...nine..." The computer said over the intercom. Sora and Eve didn't take their eyes off Walle as they kept hoping against hope that he would stir or stutter-give them any kind of sign that he could still be fixed and that they weren't too late.

"Eight...seven...six..."

Sora saw that many of the humans were bowing their heads in respect for Walle. They too thought it was too late...

"Five...four...three..."

Eve repeatedly whispered "No...", trying so hard to deny that he was gone for good. They were going to Earth-they could still fix him. He wasn't dead. He couldn't be... "WALLE!" Sora stared up at Eve and wiped his tears. He wasn't going to give up yet. Walle wasn't impossible to fix-he was a computer, and they were easier to repair then humans. If Eve wasn't giving up, then he wouldn't either.

"Two...One...Zero..."

The ship blasted off.


	8. Static

As soon as the Axiom touched the Earth and the doors opened, Eve and Sora had zipped off and were flying across the land, looking for Walle's home where all of his parts were supposed to be. Eve was clutching Walle against her like he was an infant, and Sora was matching her speed with a determined expression. Both refused to believe that Walle was truly dead, and were completely focused on the task ahead them: they were going to fix him. Then Walle would come back, and he and Eve would finally be together forever, just like Sora, Eve, and Walle himself wanted.

Sora opened the garage's door and Eve shot in, setting Walle down and already beginning her search for his parts. She removed his broken arm from him and threw it aside, gazing around for a new one. Sora picked a perfectly new arm from off the shelf and handed it to her. She held out her hand again, staring at Walle's deformed eye. Sora nodded and rotated one of the shelves until he found a new one, handing it to Eve who took it without looking. She plucked his old eye out and placed the new one in, shutting his whole head into his body so that he looked like a box again. Finally she pulled out his old memory and circuit board and held out her hand, and Sora placed a new one in it. Her arms moving so fast that they were nothing more than a white blur, she installed it inside of Walle's body, quickly opened up his solar panel, and shot her gun at his ceiling so that the hole let in a large layer of sunlight.

When all was quiet, Sora waited next to Eve, staring at his form hopefully. He certainly looked fine now-with how much Eve had fixed him, it didn't even look like he got shocked by Auto or crushed by a Holo Detector. The only thing was that he wasn't moving at all, so they weren't really sure that he truly was back...After a few more seconds of waiting, Eve turned her head to Sora, looking very forlorn. Sora tried to smile back reassuringly, hoping that he looked convincing. "Don't worry...Walle's gonna be okay now. He just needs more time..."

But when he looked back at Walle's unmoving form, he found himself repeatedly whispering under his breath, "Please be okay..."

...Beep...Beep...

Sora's eyes widened. That beeping sound happened the last time Walle was charging!

Beep, beep, bong...

Sure enough, the charger on Walle's chest showed that it had charged fully and was ready to function.

Walle's head emerged out of his cubed form, eyes open and staring at Eve.

Sora let out the breath that he didn't know he was holding and restrained himself from embracing Walle. Eve deserved her time more than anyone else.

"Walle..." Eve gave a sigh of relief and happiness, so happy to see him alive again. She didn't even know why she'd worried in the first place-computers were easy for her to fix, and Walle functioned no different than one. She smiled as she held out her hand to him, awaiting what both herself and Walle wanted. He would be so glad...

But Walle didn't hold his hand out for Eve. He didn't even acknowledge that she moved at all. To both Sora and Eve's surprise, he turned around and started to tread out of the garage.

Eve gasped and turned him back around. It was possible that his memory was just taking a while to come back since she only just repaired him. Maybe she could just refresh it a little.

"Eeeevva." She pointed to herself, the same way she introduced herself the first she met Walle. Then she gestured to Sora, who looked confused. "Sora." That would definitely get Walle back. He could never forget them...

Walle still stared at her with a blank look in his eyes. Sora stared at him, his confusion at Walle not recognizing any of them slowly starting to morph into worry. His eyes looked...cold and unfamiliar. The eyes that Sora had looked into before were always full of curiosity and warmth, but looking at his eyes now, it was the equivalent of staring into a void. Was Walle's memory loss not temporary...?

No. That couldn't be true. Walle was just a little tired, that was all. Maybe he was in shock from the previous pain he experienced. Sora decided to summon and re-summon his Keyblade, showering the room with white sparks. Walle always got a kick out of that. He loved watching them...

He didn't look remotely interested. Sora looked at him in shock.

"Walle...?" Eve sounded both sad and hopeful. She did feel a little worried that Walle still didn't show any sign that he remembered them, but she wasn't going to give up yet. After all, she already managed to save Walle once. She could surely do it again. He would see things right eventually.

"Oh, wait, I have an idea!" Sora said all of a sudden. He dashed toward the TV screen and pressed the play button on the VCR. Immediately, the cheery scene and music of "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" appeared on the screen, and Eve smiled approvingly. Walle loved the movie like a treasure. He could never-

"Huh?" Sora and Eve's eyes widened in shock when they saw, not only that Walle wasn't paying attention to the movie, but that he had just compacted some of his treasured items into a cube without even showing a hint of remorse.

"Walle...?" Eve no longer sounded hopeful when she spoke, and Sora wasn't listening to the cheery music anymore. Something was definitely wrong with Walle, and it wasn't just that his memory seemed to be gone...he was acting like a cold, emotionless robot who only lived to obey his directive, just like most of the other robots aboard the Axiom.

Sora and Eve approached Walle as he was treading outside, compacting more trash into cubes. The entire time, he didn't let out any squeak or warble like he normally did.

Eve finally grabbed Walle and turned him toward her so that she was looking at him, and she pressed the play button on his chest, hoping for at least some sign that he was truly there...

Static. Nothing but static played back to Sora and Eve. No sweet romantic music, no upbeat dancing music, just lifeless static.

Sora felt tears falling from his eyes again. Walle wasn't dead. No, he was worse than dead. He was gone. And this time, he was never coming back...

"Walle...?" Eve was still looking at him, forcing his eyes toward her own, like she was trying to get him to come back out of the depths of those cold lifeless eyes just by seeing hers. "Walle!" She shook him harder. Still nothing. "WALLE!" She was on the brink of desperation as she shook him harder, trying with all her might to bring him back...

He did nothing except stare back at her blankly.

Walle was gone. Forever.

Sora stared down at the ground, his vision blurry from so many tears leaking. Everything that Walle had done, everything that Sora and Eve had done was all for nothing. He came with Walle so that he would help him have Eve love him so that he would never be lonely again, and although Eve now loved him more than life itself like Walle and Sora wanted, it had been at the cost of his own existance. The robot that stood before them was not the robot that Eve loved. He was not the robot that became Sora's friend.

"Eve..." Sora's voice sounded cracked. "I'm...I'm sorry. I should've tried harder," He was openly sobbing now, "If I had just been a little stronger, Walle wouldn't have-!" Eve suddenly looked at him with such intense melancholy and hopelessness that Sora shut his mouth immediately. Her look showed all the words that she was trying to say to him: "I don't blame you; it's not your fault..."

Sora still didn't feel any better.

Eve felt a hole open up somewhere inside of her. Her directive was complete. She had fulfilled what she had dreamed of fulfilling since she was first created, but she didn't feel any ounce of happiness. Walle came into her life, and he showed her that there was so much more than doing what you were meant to do. He showed her happiness, kindness, despair, love...and now that he was gone, what was the point of really living? If the very robot who taught her everything about life was gone, then shouldn't she go with him? Civilization wouldn't even have made it back if it weren't for Walle's bravery...

Sora seemed to have read her mind, because he stated, "Eve...If you're thinking of...getting rid of yourself...well, please promise me that you won't."

Eve looked at him and felt a small spark of anger. Why shouldn't she be with Walle? Nothing else in the world mattered to her-didn't he know that?

Sora wiped his eyes as he said, "Listen to me, Eve. Would Walle want you to do that? He's gone, I'll admit that, but you're still alive. And Walle would want you to live. More than anything else, he had always wanted what was best for you. Because he loves you, Eve, more than his own life."

Eve's expression softened back to sorrow, and she looked at the emotionless robot before her. Sora was right. Walle would never want her to take her own life. He would be devastated-especially if he was the cause of it. She had to go back and live. She needed to help the humans recolonize the earth.

But, she looked at Sora with a pleading expression, she wanted to share just a few more selfish moments with Walle. Sora smiled and nodded.

Eve sadly looked at Walle, and held his already open hand. It felt very warm despite the cold look in his eyes...At least that part of Walle was the same.

She came closer and closer to him, and found herself humming softly the first notes of the song that Walle loved, "It Only Takes A Moment..."

She finally touched his face, and sent an electric spark coursing through him. Her own kiss, and last goodbye. With one last look at him, and with a heavy heart, Eve prepared to fly away...

But she couldn't.

Something had stopped her. It wasn't her own reluctance to let him go, though, but Walle's hand still hadn't let go of hers.

Sora's eyes widened like Eve's. This was suddenly reminding him of when he had turned into a Heartless. When he had been lost in darkness, cold, alone, and wishing above all else that he was with someone. Someone warm and comforting...was that how Walle felt right now? Was he floating through oblivion, looking for a source of light and comfort so he could escape? And did that mean that there was a chance that he could come back? He chanced a glance at Walle to see if his eyes were shining like they did before...

He was still staring blankly in space. Eve and Sora looked downcast again. Her hand was just stuck to Walle's hand, that's why.

But his hand was twitching, and his grip was slowly getting tighter. Their eyes widened again. Was he really...?

His eyes were starting to refocus and readjust, like he was trying to set his sights right, and Sora and Eve saw a familiar gleam start to glow somewhere in its depths. His grip was growing tighter, and suddenly his eyes were moving up and down like he did whenever he tried to focus them. He slowly looked up into Eve's eyes...

"Eva...?"

Unbelievable...Sora felt tears form again, but this time out of pure joy. Unable to restrain himself, he whooped and picked up Walle and Eve, spinning them around happily. "YOU'RE BACK, YOU'RE BACK, YOU'RE OKAY!"

Eve was giggling uncontrollably, so deliriously happy that Walle was okay. Walle felt confused and a little winded. All he remembered was getting crushed by the Holo Detector, then darkness, then all of a sudden he had found himself looking into the beautiful eyes of the love of his life. But as Sora spun them around, he noticed another thing:

She was holding his hand.

"Sora? Sora!" Eve sounded a little annoyed as she said his name. Sora understood and set the both of them down gently, feeling a little dizzy.

"Sorry...I'm just so glad that you're okay, Walle!"

"Sora!" Walle said happily, gesturing to his hand that was holding Eve's, looking proud and blissful. Eve giggled again. Sora gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

"You really did it, Walle." He watched as the couple slowly came closer to each other, and lovingly touched their heads together, closing their eyes to savor the blissful moment.

Along with the happiness Sora felt that Walle and Eve would never be alone again, came the remembrance that he had to get back to the Gummi Ship, and to do his own mission. He stared at Walle and Eve with a sad smile on his face.

"Hey, guys...I have to go." The two looked at him, but they didn't look sad by what he said. Eve gestured back toward the Axiom with a smile on her face. Oh, she thought that he meant back to help the humans...

"No, I mean I have to go back to..." How could he phrase it without giving away where he was from? "...To do my own directive. And it isn't here." Walle and Eve's faces fell, and Sora sighed.

"But you see it's very important because it involves people that I care very much about. So you understand, don't you?"

Eve looked up at him and smiled in understanding, and Walle started to tread toward him, holding out his hand.

"F...frrrieeeeend." He stuttered, grabbing Sora's hand and shaking it. Sora smiled and shook it back.

"We sure are, Walle. And you too, Eve." Sora grabbed her hand and shook it. Eve smiled and nodded. "Friend."

With one last long look at them, Sora waved goodbye and took off where they couldn't see him.

"Donald," He whispered into his Keyblade, "Lift me up."

Strangely enough, Donald didn't respond when Sora felt a beam of light transport him back. And it wasn't until he reached the control room of the Gummi Ship that he saw both Donald and Goofy. As soon as the door opened, Donald whipped his seat around and tackled Sora to the ground.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED WE WERE? WE SEARCHED THAT WORLD FOR HOURS AND NEVER FOUND YOU! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING-!" Sora halfheartedly pinched Donald's beak shut and stated, "Something came up and it's all taken care of."

Goofy turned around too, and looked at Sora in confusion. "Whaddaya mean?"

"I'll explain later, I'm a little tired. Let's go to Twilight Town soon- Chip and Dale said something was going on there...Maybe Kairi's back." Sora plopped into his own seat facing the controls of the ship and started toward the golden brown silhoette, leaving behind the blue and brown world of the planet Earth.

But Sora was still confused about one thing.

"Hey, you guys," The duo both responded with, "Hmm?"

"The world I landed on didn't have any Heartless. Do you know why that is?"

Donald tapped his feathery fingers against the arms of his chair for a moment before asking, "What was the condition of that world?"

"Well, it was really dirty and desolate..." Sora admitted.

Donald nodded. "I see. Well I think I know why. You see, you remember that the reason the Heartless are attracted to worlds is because of the world's heart, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, there are times, rare, where the condition of the world affects the condition of the heart. If that world looks as terrible as you say, then the heart probably is the same. It's a dying world, and the Heartless aren't attracted to dying hearts. They prefer fresh meat."

Sora's eyes widened. "But they're going to clean up their world-will the Heartless be attracted to it then?"

Goofy answered this time. "Well, I don't think so, Sora."

"Why?"

"Well, it'll take a while to clean up an entire world like that, and I betcha that by the time they're done, we'll have defeated Xemnas and taken care of the Heartless problem."

Sora smiled and sighed with relief. It was strange, but Goofy could show wisdom when he wanted to.

"Thanks, guys. Now how about that Twilight Town?"

Sora redirected the rocket engines and shot off to his next destination. Walle and Eve were together, the civilisation was back, and their world would be alive again. If he had just managed to do the impossible, then saving Kairi and finding Riku would be a piece of cake.


End file.
